SoundCloud Intros Paid Composer Tier

As we reported last month, SoundCloud has been shifting their business model behind the scenes.

Helping stoke fires of discontent among the site's music creators, who've freely uploaded their original tracks at no cost to SoundCould, has been word that SoundCloud is going to launch a Pandora-like music player via its recently redesigned app... and make money from it.

Maybe that's why SoundCloud (very quietly and suddenly) created a new tiered structure for their content creators, wherein the most popular (AKA: "Premier") composers will be monetarily rewarded for their music's online performances.

If so, then it looks like another player has officially joined the busy field of monetized digital music platforms. But is SoundCloud on the defense or offense by paying only 'popular' composers? What is their matrix for determining who will be paid? How much are they doling out? How often? Are there a limited number of slots in this Premier tier?

So many questions...

Once SoundCloud jumps into the monetization scrum, could composers (one day) see a bump in their music royalties thanks to market competition among digital platform providers? Doesn't the increasing pressure for digital platforms to pay real performance royalties have to eventually release into cold hard cash for the music's creators?

Or does it?

What do you think? Is this new Premier tier a forward-thinking move by SoundCloud, or a cover-its-rear move?

Is SoundCloud's new business model built on the idea it will continue to getting free and fresh content from cutting-edge composers? Will composers keep freely giving SoundCloud their professional-grade music? Are outside-the-box composers are okay with Teacher only scooping out ice cream to the most popular kids at school each day?

Be sure to check out our post on Exploration, who is (very quietly and suddenly) thinking way ahead of the game. (Digital royalty advances, anyone?)