Over the weekend, users of SoundCloud were presented with fewer artists to choose from. Sony Music has slowly been pulling its artists from the service, including Adele, Hozier, Miguel, Kelly Clarkson, Passion Pit, Leon Bridges, and MS MR after failing to reach an agreement with SoundCloud on streaming royalties. It’s believed that Sony decided to pull its artists due to SoundCloud not providing enough options for them to make money.

More details after the jump.

The names above are just some of the reported artists removed by Sony Music, and that number could rise. It’s unclear if this is a definitive move by Sony or simply a negotiation tactic. Unlike Spotify and Pandora, SoundCloud till last year had been a free service. Only in the last year has the company transitioned to a more ‘business friendly’ ad-supported model. From SoundCloud:

 We are in ongoing conversations with major and independent labels and will continue to add partners to the [On SoundCloud] program 

SoundCloud claims that since 2014, when the ad-supported streams were introduced, more than $2 million in advertising revenue has been paid to more than 100 partners. For a giant like Sony Music, you can see that such a number is inconsequential, even if they received the full amount – which they have not. Rightly or wrongly so, Sony Music likely sees more lost revenue from SoundCloud than by pulling their artists, which they hope will help to direct SoundCloud users to services which do offer their music, where Sony also likely makes more money.

Discuss:

Have you ever used SoundCloud to listen to established artists?

[Via Billboard]