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SoundCloud. SoundCloud Limited [Berlin]. http://soundcloud.com/ (Accessed August 2013). [Compatible with Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, Safari, and Internet Explorer Web browsers. Mobile access pro- vided by official iPhone, iPad, and Android apps. Apps built using the SoundCloud application programming interface provide additional functionality.]
As librarians and archivists, we engage constantly with questions relating to licens- ing, copyright, fair use, and open access, and we can expect to do more of it with the growth in online education and increasing user expectations of immediate access. Simultaneously, we need not look far for examples of the perils involved, as content industries have moved to protect their busi- ness models and neutralize the inherent ability of their digital "Read/Only" tokens to become "Read/Write," to borrow Lawrence Lessig's terminology, to anyone with a com- puter, broadband access, and the will to do so.1 In the digital audio economy, as else- where, it has become commonplace for the content industry to lump together as piracy the activities of the amateur musician, the remix artist, the audio archivist, and the user of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing net- works. Enter various user-driven digital au- dio services, like MySpace, Grooveshark, NoiseTrade, and SoundCloud, all of which have had their share of struggles with copy- right and licensing issues, and one begins to perceive the outlines of an embattled yet vigorous audio remix culture that merits our consideration.
With 38 million registered users, and a string of entrepreneurship awards, SoundCloud has emerged as a leader for the hosting and sharing of original audio. This review will examine SoundCloud's functionality, its users, the strengths and disadvantages of its anti-piracy measures, as well as how it might enter into library out- reach strategies.
What is SoundCloud?
SoundCloud is a social audio platform that allows users to create and share sounds across the web. Launched in 2008 by two Swedes, Eric Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung, SoundCloud provides a secure, col- laborative and (in the paying version) cus- tomizable platform on which users can upload and share audio, access listener sta- tistics, and receive commentary from the SoundCloud community. Thanks to its embeddable players and integration with social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest, one need not be on the SoundCloud website to engage with its users'...