SoundCloud agrees to pay royalties after five-year negotiation with publishers

The trade body for musicians PRS for Music has come to a ‘multi-territory’ agreement with SoundCloud and called a halt to legal proceedings against the firm.

The organization launched a lawsuit against SoundCloud in August after five years of negotiations on getting royalties for its members broke down.

PRS said this agreement means its members will now be “fairly rewarded” for the use of their music, while the announcement also outlines plans to work together into 2016 to make the platform even better.

This will include joint working on improving metadata on the platform so artists can better understand if their music is being used – and get paid for it – as well as promising “new SoundCloud services and functionality across Europe in 2016.”

TNW has reached out to SoundCloud to find out exactly what those services might look like. We’ll update the post if we hear back.