In the age of music streaming and digital music, supporting your favorite artists has become much different from what you could do before. SoundCloud could offer another more direct method.
Now that digital music reigns more or less as a master and that we hardly buy CDs any more, helping an artist to live off his passion is done in a completely different way, via the remuneration of listening in streaming, in particular . SoundCloud could come up with something very different.
SoundCloud could make it possible to pay an artist directly
Showing all the love you have for a singer or a band was like buying their albums and going to concerts. Today, streaming reigns supreme. And with the health crisis, we can forget the concerts. Remuneration via streaming is a major point of contention, with some arguing that the share given to artists is far too low. That being said, there could be some good news on this from the SoundCloud side.
Fans could thus show their full support for their favorite artists.
In a Billboard report, we learn that SoundCloud intends to introduce new ways for users to support their favorite artists by paying them money directly. This means that, rather than giving the money to the record companies who then donate to the artist, fans on SoundCloud will be able to donate whatever amount they choose directly. However, it’s a safe bet that the platform takes a commission on these transactions.
This would be quite similar to what other subscription platforms offer in the world of culture, like Patreon. On this platform, fans can pay a monthly subscription to show their support. If this information is true, it could be a big change for musicians. As said, at the present time, the share received by artists depends on the contracts signed with their record company. And the amounts are rarely interesting.
A situation that may seem quite unfair in that, in the world of streaming, part goes to the platform itself and the record company takes the rest. It is the latter who then pays the artist according to the rate fixed by their contract. It is easy to understand that it is an often winning market for record companies. For the most popular artists, this new feature is probably not very important, as they have other sources of income, including sponsorship, but for small artists, especially freelancers, it could greatly simplify their lives. .