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Morning all! Not sure how to handle this one.

If you have music on Soundcloud marked as Public non-downloadable but then you want to submit it to an exclusive listing, can you? Or does having it public on Soundcloud (or YouTube or Web Site for that matter) keep in forever in Non-Exclusiveville?

Is it better to keep everything private? Just share the links for peer to peer listening? What happens to your followers then?

Thanks, and I hope your day is Great!

Until you sign it it's yours to do whatever you want with. If you do sign said track exclusively it might be wise to ask if it's okay to leave it up on SC or just make it private at that point. Also, I would definitely disable the download feature at that point.

Technically, publishing means making your music available for sale; if it's available for listening on the web, it kinda depends on the site's terms and conditions, and whether they're getting a piece of your royalties. Soundcloud notwithstanding, if you have a buy button or a link to where the the song can be purchased or streamed from a royalty-generating site, meaning you're already monetizing, any further use is probably co-publishing, and may not be considered to be exclusive, but it comes down to individual cases; many libraries and some publishers understand that your licensing agreements are exclusive to them, for a given use, but you're allowed to continue selling/promoting your work under your own name or that of your band. For example, most ad agencies would encourage you to be selling/promoting your brand, as they''ll be piggybacking on your success/profile, whereas a publisher that's actively pitching to signed artists will likely want 'right of first publishing', because of statutory rates, which is a can of worms I won't go into, here. It's really up to the individual library or publisher, so you'll probably want to ask.


I'm not a lawyer, and the above is for informational purposes and may not be construed as legal advice, in case you were wondering,

What is meant by "exclusive" in any particular deal will be defined in the contract - it doesn't have a general meaning in law. When you're signing a track to an exclusive deal, check the contract terms to see what other uses are (or most likely are not) permitted. For example, you might find that you're only exclusive in one territory.

Hi, Megeath.

Like Ethan said, until it's signed, you can do what you want with it. However, you need to make sure you're not putting it somewhere where there will be difficulty "undoing" it in the case that you sign the work "exclusively."

Recently some folks and I signed a co-written piece to an exclusive contract. I didn't bother to try to decide if having the piece "public" on soundcloud was in violation or not. I just changed the song to "private." Later, one of my co-writers was going to post the song to another public streaming site and I warned him not to do that just to be on the safe side.

Russell

Hi Russell! Everyone, thanks for your answers.

Have a great day...

Russell Landwehr wrote:Hi, Megeath.

Like Ethan said, until it's signed, you can do what you want with it. However, you need to make sure you're not putting it somewhere where there will be difficulty "undoing" it in the case that you sign the work "exclusively."

Recently some folks and I signed a co-written piece to an exclusive contract. I didn't bother to try to decide if having the piece "public" on soundcloud was in violation or not. I just changed the song to "private." Later, one of my co-writers was going to post the song to another public streaming site and I warned him not to do that just to be on the safe side.

Russell

Yep, Russell, I did the same thing. In fact, I just pulled the tracks altogether just to be on the safe side.

Does this say what I think it says? From the Soundcloud terms of use:

By uploading Your Content to the Platform, you also grant a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid up, license to other users of the Platform, and to operators and users of any other websites, apps and/or platforms to which Your Content has been shared or embedded using the Services (“Linked Services”), to use, copy, listen to offline, repost, transmit or otherwise distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, adapt, prepare derivative works of, compile, make available and otherwise communicate to the public

https://soundcloud.com/terms-of-use#grant-of-license

does posting on Soundcloud waive your ownership rights?

Yes, posting something public on Soundcloud means it can be ripped and used in any way the ripper wishes. I'm torn, I keep most of my stuff private... but post things for 50-90, for example.. imo you're better off having it on your website perhaps. Dunno.

hummingbird wrote:Yes, posting something public on Soundcloud means it can be ripped and used in any way the ripper wishes. I'm torn, I keep most of my stuff private... but post things for 50-90, for example.. imo you're better off having it on your website perhaps. Dunno.

Ouch! I would imagine this clause is null once the music is off SC correct? Hypothetical situation: you have a song on soundcloud while you are shopping it. Now the song gets signed by a major label and you take it OFF of SC. Now it gets released on a major album for xxxx major artist. Now if someone tries to make a derivative of that work (that was once on SC) - that label will surely sue. There's no way that just bc it was on SC at one point that now indefinitely ppl can use or knock off that work. Or am I wrong in my assumption? Scary..

Marcus