According to the BBC, Spotify, the titan of the music-streaming world, is currently in advanced negotiations to purchase Soundcloud, the global online audio distribution platform. The potential merger comes at a time when competition in the music streaming world is at an all time high – although Spotify currently boasts 40 million paid subscribers, Apple Music, Pandora, Tidal, and Amazon’s new streaming service are solidifying themselves as formidable rivals. Both financially and intuitively, the potential merger between Spotify and Soundcloud makes sense; Soundcloud launched its own streaming service in March 2016 and “has been shopping itself around for some time, while Spotify needs to continue outpacing Apple as it heads towards an initial public offering.”
Loren Shokes (Class of 2017) is the Executive Editor of Online Content and the Online Interview Editor for the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law.