The music industry is all abuzz as SoundCloud has (finally) launched its first paid subscription service – Go. The subscription is $9.99 a month with a 30-day free demo. The subscription gives you ad-free and offline listening, and is currently only available in the U.S. The most important thing about SoundCloud’s service is that its repertoire has 100 million more tracks than Spotify. This means that getting users to buy into its subscription service would be a huge comeback for SoundCloud, who has been dealing with financial difficulties as of late. SoundCloud is hugely loved by members of the music industry because, unlike other services like Apple Music or Spotify, SoundCloud is not as strict of a “final destination” for songs. It is much more acceptable to upload casual remixes or ad-hoc tracks onto your SoundCloud profile than Spotify. Uniquely, it looks like it will be the music creators rather than listeners that make a big difference in this service’s success. The CEO of Soundcloud gave the following comment on its new service: “SoundCloud Go represents our vision of the future of music streaming: a platform for creators to collaborate on; for fans to discover the latest tracks, enjoy legendary music and connect with their favorite artists; and for our unique creative community to have the opportunity to be paid for their work.”
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Jennifer Marr is an Entertainment and Sports Highlight Contributor for the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law and a current first year student at Harvard Law School (Class of 2018).