At SoundCloud, the corporate’s mission to empower artists to take management of their careers, by means of discovery, viewers connection, monetization, and inventive autonomy, was on full show throughout this 12 months’s Net Summit in Lisbon. On November 12, the platform hosted a particular reside version of Sound Recommendation, its signature dialog sequence highlighting the artists shaping what comes subsequent. That occasion is now being launched to the general public, accompanied by information of a major new partnership that expands on the concepts explored on stage by Grammy Award–profitable artist and Auracles founder Imogen Heap and SoundCloud CEO Eliah Seton.
Recorded earlier than a packed crowd, the Sound Recommendation Reside episode introduced Seton and Heap collectively for a wide-ranging dialogue on moral AI, artist knowledge rights, and the way forward for music in a quickly shifting digital panorama. Heap, who has spent greater than three a long time pushing inventive and technological boundaries, mirrored on her early experiments with SoundCloud, together with fan-submitted audio for The Tune That By no means Was, in addition to improvements akin to her MiMU Gloves, the AI-driven assistant AI.Mogen, and her newest initiative, Auracles. Designed as a sovereign digital ID and inventive knowledge platform, Auracles offers artists the instruments to guard, handle, and management their work with higher transparency; one thing Heap has lengthy advocated for as important to a more healthy music ecosystem.
In tandem with the discharge of the episode, SoundCloud introduced a brand new collaboration with Auracles that strengthens its dedication to serving to artists safeguard their digital identities. Via this partnership, Auracles joins the SoundCloud Advantages Accomplice Program, permitting creators to straight join their SoundCloud profiles to Auracles. Artists can now import music initiatives into Auracles for administration and group, and publish these initiatives again to SoundCloud each time they select. In an period the place artists confront an more and more opaque digital surroundings, the combination supplies clearer possession pathways, enhanced safety, and higher inventive autonomy.
Heap described the partnership as transformative, calling it a “game-changing collaboration” and emphasizing its alignment with Auracles’ imaginative and prescient of long-term artist sustainability. She famous that this integration represents a significant step towards constructing a future market designed across the wants of artists, one through which digital id, inventive rights, and truthful compensation kind the muse. Heap expressed enthusiasm for the street forward, underscoring that this collaboration marks solely the start of her work with SoundCloud.
The partnership displays a shared perception between SoundCloud and Auracles that the subsequent period of the music trade should prioritize transparency, interoperability, and fan-driven income. Conventional streaming fashions alone can not meet the wants of artists searching for steady careers or followers needing deeper engagement. By aligning SoundCloud’s artist-first instruments with Auracles’ data-centric infrastructure, each organizations intention to maneuver the trade towards a construction the place artists are credited precisely, protected at each step, and compensated pretty for his or her creativity.
This initiative is positioned as an early however vital marker in a a lot bigger imaginative and prescient. Each SoundCloud and Imogen Heap plan to proceed increasing their collaboration, signaling extra developments to come back because the music trade evolves round new know-how, new creator calls for, and a renewed push for equity within the digital house.
