Oh god, Spotify wants to buy Soundcloud

As if the battle between rival streaming services wasn’t complicated enough already, Spotify are reportedly in “advanced talks” to buy Soundcloud. According to The Financial Times, an announcement could be made any day. Christ on a bike.

Soundcloud launched its own subscription service -SoundCloud Go - back in March, and with a few hundred thousand people signed up so far, it’s nowhere near competing with Spotify’s 40 million paying subscribers, and Apple Music’s 15 million.

Spotify are likely wanting to buy Soundcloud for different reasons; because of its monopoly on new, emerging artists, and the ad revenue brought in from users who don’t pay for the service. Since there’s no middle-man on Soundcloud, with users uploading new music direct, the streaming site has a far larger catalogue than anywhere else, to the tune of 125 million tracks.

The acquisition is a risky one for Spotify, however. When Soundcloud introduced their subscription service, they had to make a few compromises; the biggest one was allowing major labels to withholdmajor releases from free users for a window of time. Spotify has actively resisted this kind of division, and might have to change its tune if it takes over Soundcloud. Uh oh.

Spokespeople from both services have declined to comment.