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by jlarocco 3775 days ago
Honestly, I don't think the solution even requires that much creativity or innovation.

Just in the past 3 or 4 months I've found half a dozen or more artists on Soundcloud, then headed over to Bandcamp or Amazon to buy and download their music. It would be awesome if I could buy it right there on Soundcloud. Every song could have a "Buy MP3" and "Buy Album" button right there by the Like, Share and other buttons.

Maybe it wouldn't solve all of their problems, but it's better than what they have now.

4 comments

A lot of the music posted is a single here, a single there - often before official release. Sometimes it isn't weeks until that single (or larger album) is available for purchase.

Plus, for the electronic/DJ side of things, many of the tracks posted are remixes which aren't ever for sale (it seems). But from a scale standpoint, you would think that there might be some sort of revenue opportunity there.

> many of the tracks posted are remixes which aren't ever for sale (it seems)

Isn't there a fair-use provision where you can remix/sample works as long as you don't sell the derivative work or something like that?

I think that's how a lot of the electronic music stuff works... people freely mix and remix stuff, give it away for free, and make their income doing live events and shows.

That's my sense... anyone know if I got these details right?

I don't see how that changes anything.

Post the single with a "Available to buy on <some date>" notice. When it's officially released, take down the notice and put up "Buy now" buttons. And there's no reason they have to make every song available for sale or every song that's for sale available for streaming.

Even better, either 'Let me know when it's available' or 'Auto-buy and add to my collection when it's out'.
Or even work out some sort of revenue sharing / affiliation with Bandcamp/Amazon/iTunes
This functionality actually already exists. Artists can add a purchase link to the store of their choosing, and it will appear right next to the "Share" button.
You didn't correctly read what he said. He wants an option to directly buy mp3s (etc.) from SoundCloud directly with one click.
I wish I could buy everything from Bandcamp. I feel like I'm the only one who thinks FLAC is important. I may not be renewing Spotify, so I'm back to using my (very limited, where is my SD card Google?) local storage, therefore I'm going to be transcoding my collection to ~85 kilobit Opus which seems to be acceptable quality for listening to while out of the house.