Universal Music Agrees To Licensing Deal With SoundCloud

Thank the heavens! SoundCloud has long been at war with the major labels regarding licensing of their tracks. We've seen it repeatedly: artists blow up using SoundCloud as their medium. Major labels then sign them and pull all their content from SoundCloud. Everyone loses.

Fortunately the tide seems to be turning, with deals coming out of both Warner and now UMG's camps.

That's not just good news for SoundCloud listeners -- it's good news for Indie Shuffle users as well (the vast majority of our library is powered by SoundCloud). Here's hoping this ends up being a damned positive deal for the music industry.

Note that as part of CEO Ljung's announcement, it was also revealed that SoundCloud plans to start a subscription tier soon.