For struggling musicians, making a buck, let alone a living, from their music can be difficult. WhileSoundCloudhas emerged as a useful way of easily sharing audio online in recent times, there hasn’t been a straightforward way for users to monetise those recordings.
NowFlattr, the ‘online tipjar’ startup founded Pirate Bay co-founder Peter Sunde, haslauncheda way to connect a Flattr account to SoundCloud. This means that users can now earn money from their songs – or any other audio they upload.
A Flattr button will be added to the user’s SoundCloud players, wherever they’re embedded. Now, Flattr has hardly gone mainstream yet, but it’s another potential revenue stream for musicians online. What’s more, it shows that it’s less important than ever to have a traditional record deal – just likeBandCamp, this is another easy-to-set-up ‘roll your own’ monetisation solution. SoundCloud’s probably kicking itself it do this itself.
Story byMartin SFP Bryant
Martin SFP Bryant is the founder of UK startup newsletter PreSeed Now and technology and media consultancy Big Revolution. He was previously(show all)Martin SFP Bryant is the founder of UK startup newsletterPreSeed Nowand technology and media consultancyBig Revolution. He was previously Editor-in-Chief at TNW.
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