Published
Tue, Oct 30, 2018, 12:13
- The streaming service softened its "covenant not to sue" after being criticised for exploitative terms.
SoundCloud has revised the contract of its recently expanded Premier service.
The company took to its blog to respond to an outpouring of criticism after The Verge shed light on the terms behind the Premier service's promise of direct royalty payouts to artists. Participants were compelled to accept "ambiguous payment dates and payout percentages that can change at any time," and a mandatory arbitration clause requiring disputes to be settled outside a court of law. Most notably, artists had to relinquish the right to sue the company for any reason, such as failure to pay or copyright infringements.
SoundCloud says it has "received feedback that some language in the original program agreement was too broad, and we want to avoid any doubt around your rights and how we run the program." The "covenant not to sue" has been removed, which was characterised as "part of our previous invite-only agreement," and there is now a commitment to pay within 45 days of the end of every month.
SoundCloud also recently announced plans for integration with DJing software from companies like Native Instruments and Serato.