Anyone who has a Soundcloud account that’s uploaded anything at all will undoubtedly be familiar with the site’s ‘automatic content protection system’. Historically it’s been fraught with bugs and mis-detections, and things haven’t gotten better since their discussions with records labels has spurred a movement to take down every possible infringement (in hopes of not getting shut down). It would seem that it’s hit an all time low, as Kaskade has been bombarded by a plethora of emails notifying him that his uploads are the copyrighted content of Ultra Records, LLC, and 70% of Soundcloud has been taken down. Kaskade has since spoken up about the Soundcloud dilemma: “Free the music, and your cash will follow.”
I imagine over the next week my entire sound cloud will be taken down. Sorry but there is nothing I can do here.
— Kaskade (@kaskade) June 4, 2014
It’s a bummer as I have worked to build that page up and put great stuff on there. (*shrugs shoulders) ahhh well. — Kaskade (@kaskade) June 4, 2014
Although 70% of my sound cloud has been taken down you might want to consider visiting it and grabbing those last bits…
— Kaskade (@kaskade) June 4, 2014
Kaskade’s Soundcloud has been home to many of his best mashups and remixes, some of which he put up for free download; he’s had small issues here and there with some of it, but it’s always been directly with the label. He threw out the idea of creating his own portal to post the content he wants to share with us; who knows maybe he’ll end up with a subscription service similar to Deadmau5’s?
Yes, so I will move forward with constructing my own portal where I can share what I like when I like. — Kaskade (@kaskade) June 4, 2014
It’s a shame that a service that’s there to act as a platform to spread music is cutting the content that makes it so great. Producers and DJs are known for their use of sampling and impressive remixes (and bootlegs), and if you’re “a little guy” or somebody trying to break into the scene, getting noticed is going to get more difficult than it already is. Lucky for Kaskade, Ultra Records actually had his back and the posts should be back up within the next day or so.
.@kaskade we don’t know how it happened, but it should be back up asap! #dontstopdancing
— Ultra Music (@ultrarecords) June 4, 2014
Nice! Just wanna share w/ others. Is that so wrong? “@ultrarecords: @kaskade we don’t know how it happened, but it should be back up asap!” — Kaskade (@kaskade) June 4, 2014
Keeping this site free, fair, and legal can’t be easy. Soundcloud has the best intentions with this copyright detection system (plus they have to have it to circumvent the Digital Millennium Copyright Act), but this is really getting out of hand. Something’s gotta give, and there needs to be some serious change to the system. Otherwis they’ll lose their user base and, as Kaskade put it in his tweet, it’ll be the end of an era (and real good one at that).
