Call me skeptical, but Soundcloud’s Founder and CTO Eric Wahlforss just dropped a bomb on everyone. He announced to a german magazine, Groove, that DJ Mixes are now legal. The reason I am skeptical is this is one reason why our account (with tons of followers and we were paying) among many were stripped down. Everyone is on edge about this news because we find this too good to be true with Soundcloud, although this could be the news they need especially with the alleged buyout by Spotify no longer happening (again). Here is what he said in the interview:
His response to why was putting out mixes a problem in the past.
Because you could only legally DJ mixes on SoundCloud, if you had the right to all the pieces of a DJ mix was. At the instigation of the owners of the rights, we had to mixes with copyrighted material, therefore, or to take down.
His response to why some accounts were closed (like us) and why were left open for the exact same thing.
I can not say anything about individual accounts. It is important, however, that these problems with the introduction of SoundCloud Go are a thing of the past, and also for users who do not subscribe. During the negotiations for our subscription service as well as an agreement was with collecting societies like GEMA achieved in Germany. This means that DJ mixes can now be legally and problem-free on SoundCloud. So this is a very positive news for DJs.
His response to whether advertising will interrupt mixes (similar to ads on long YouTube videos).
No, this is not foreseen. Mixes should not be interrupted by advertising.
Now, we’re skeptical as this was in a magazine and these responses were translated from German to English. That said, we’ll wait for an official announcement to Soundcloud before we transition our library of 70+ mixes to the site and potentially be a paying member again. Now we’ll see if remixes and bootlegs are allowed or if Spotify will take that over with them already starting.