Update: Martin Garrix’s collaboration with Usher, “Don’t Look Down,” has now been reinstated on Martin’s Soundcloud account. You can listen to it here:
Following its partnership with Zefr, Soundcloud has been criticized for indiscriminately removing and taking down artists’ very own music from its platform. Just days after announcing the inclusion of Zefr’s aggressive recognition system, none other than Knife Party witnessed a large chunk of its library removed for copyright infringement.
Even more recently, Sony has decided to remove all of its music from Soundcloud, citing breakdowns in negotiations with the streaming site. While acts like Adele, Passion Pit, and MS MR are not directly relevant to the interests of EDM listeners, there have been incalculable remixes of their tunes which have also been included in the takedown.
Fast forward to today and it appears things haven’t gotten much better. Martin Garrix recently took to Twitter to voice his discontent as his recent collaboration with Usher, “Don’t Look Down,” was forcibly deleted from his Soundcloud account. Martin let his fans know that he’s currently looking into getting the situation rectified, but frankly this shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
DMCA takedowns can at best protect creativity and artists’ hard work but when used blindly and randomly, it only serves to hinder musicians’ ability to share their own music with their fans.
. @soundcloud why do you keep removing my own tracks from my soundcloud? not very nice
— MARTIN GARRIX (@MartinGarrix) May 17, 2015
@KevinR0607 no idea Soundcloud is being stupid, talking with the label now to get it back online
— MARTIN GARRIX (@MartinGarrix) May 17, 2015
