Thanks for the tip Chris. Even I, who just have a few song snippets and only one actual complete song had my stuff copied over to syloken.com. I went through the permissions on SC as you referenced and I'll see if they drop off syloken after a bit. Thanks!
My music is everywhere, including a few sites where I have to play whack-a-mole periodically, but I'm not on syloken.com
EDIT: never mind, it seems my tracks are no longer on SoundCloud. It's been 13 years since I would have posted anything there. Above, it was said that this site has a direct link from SoundCloud, so that explains it.
Last edited by Matt Finley; 04/19/1907:16 AM.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
Nothing came up for my name so it appears they're only ripping off you talented guys.
Haha. Did you search on your SC name or log-in?
I pasted Kajun jeaux's link and replaced his name with mine. I tried several variations of my name again today and did find my songs. Suddenly, I almost feel talented...
Why is everyone thinking this is necessarily a bad thing?
I'm not maaking any money form any of those songs that they have on there...... yep.... I looked up Herb Hartley and Guitarhacker..... different songs on each search. PLus songs that I'm either only playing on or have mixed. And stuff I had forgotten about.
The downside is I didn't see any way to contact them to ask to have my material removed. ANyone else see a "CONTACT US" link?
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 04/19/1910:26 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
From a little research starting with Tenuis's link I learned that there are many sites doing this and that SC has been aware of it for at least two years. SC always responds to inquiries that they'll report it to their "Trust and Safety" team.
I understand that SC cannot stop bots from recording audio from their site; however, they can certainly go after the sites that host the songs. Some of the sites, according to one report, even have ads!
Ridiculous.
Originally Posted By: JohnJohnJohn
Internet Rule #1 - If you post it on the internet it is available for anyone who wants it. Full stop.
Point taken but try posting a cover song or a cell phone video of certain "stars" on YouTube and see how that works out. They are vigilant. Obviously SC is not. If someone wants to to bypass our album on the streaming platforms and deny us a few small percentages of a penny of revenue for our vast coffers I can live with it It's SC's lack of willingness to do anything about it that PO's me.
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
I like the look of the site better than the look of SoundCloud. Wish they were honest. They must have a direct link to SoundCloud's storage servers. They even have deleted snippets that were made as exercises for an online class with "private" access that only class members and instructors had access to.
I found my stuff on loads of sites which I find unnerving. All the fuss about copyright on the net means nothing when work gets hijacked so easily. I have deleted my SC account, not that it will have much effect.
Update: They seem to have direct links to SC as my stuff has dissapeared from two sites after I deleted my account. Check the privacy settings before you delete anything as it may not be neccesary.
How to protect your music from download on sites outside SoundCloud
Edit the track(s) you want to protect from download (click on the pencil) Click on the tab Permissions Uncheck all options Save changes
Doing the above from the SC permissions tab seems to prevent both playback and download from this site ( I object to the download part). Thanks for the suggestion Sinbad, and to Bud for the alert.
Given that SC has know about this for quite a while, and it seems that these sites, for whatever reason, can access SC file system with impunity, the question arises as to which other information could they mine for. Basic accounts don't include much information, but pro versions will probably contain quite a bit that is not meant for third parties.
Okay guys, I got a response from Soundcloud. They do know about it and do try to contact or disable if they can. However they explained how it happens and I agree probably not a lot they can do. It's called RIP THE STREAM. I imagine this happens on any site out there probably even from Spotify. I sent an email also to Google, haven't heard back from them. So here's the official response.
SoundCloud Trust & Safety Team (SoundCloud) Apr 23, 14:44 CEST Hi there,
Thanks for writing to tell us about this service, we certainly share your concerns. I'll try explain why it is currently possible for these sites to exist (and why we are not able to shut down these sites) and how we hope to improve the security of content hosted with us at SoundCloud.
Websites, like the one you reported, are exploiting vulnerabilities which are inherent in this streaming technology, which allows them to rip the stream and provide it for download elsewhere. This means that they are not downloading the original file you have uploaded with us, but instead the streamed audio (which is 128 kbps). This is the downside to using a system which allows you to be heard by everyone, everywhere.
While we are doing all we can to improve this situation, there are a number of measures you may want to consider to prevent unauthorized downloads of your content. While we cannot guarantee that this will stop these sites from accessing your content without your permission, it will put you in the best position possible to prevent people from downloading content without your consent.
• Disable app playback, so that your track will not be playable outside of the SoundCloud platform and our own apps (i.e. the official SoundCloud iOS and Android apps).
As the website you reported is not hosted or controlled by us, we technically do not have any means to take it down. What we would normally do is try and contact the owner of such a website (if they provide any contact information) and/or the company hosting the website and request they shut down the service/website. That being said, we unfortunately cannot guarantee that the third party will comply with our request.
I hope this helps to provide further clarification.
It looks to me like this is just a site that uploads download links for anything posted to SoundCloud. It most definitely isn't legal and worth reporting. Hopefully Google or SoundCloud will take action! I'm surprised the person running the site has managed to make it happen.
Disable app playback, so that your track will not be playable outside of the SoundCloud platform and our own apps (i.e. the official SoundCloud iOS and Android apps).
Sure, make it so your songs can only be played on SoundCloud. Kinda defeats the whole purpose of posting your music if you cannot share it via apps and other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Bottom line...post your music and accept that it WILL BE STOLEN or stay safe and do not share your music. Personally I am thrilled that sites like this help get my music played by more people!
There is another way that might protect your music on SoundCloud. When I searched my name I noticed that only my public tracks were listed on there. So if you make your tracks private when uploading to SoundCloud it may help.
For anyone not sure what this means, basically your private songs will not appear on your profile or be searchable. However anyone you share the link with can still listen to it.
JohnJohnJohn I suppose you are correct in that anything out there can be pirated and there's no such thing as privacy these days. You are correct in that trying to protect it will limit those who can listen to your music. Unfortunately like myself maybe a little naive, wasn't aware that could happen, so I do appreciate having the option of making a choice whether to allow it to be stolen or not. So I can decide if I just want my friends and family to hear it or other SoundCloud users. Or if someone is interested I could specifically direct them to my SoundCloud site. What's the use of just allowing it to be stolen? Is anyone going to contact you or promote you about your music? Can't even have the satisfaction that people are enjoying it? Such is the world today and it's no wonder musicians are making $10.00 a year if it's all free. I guess we're all doing it for the love of it and sending it out to the world to be played by people we'll never hear from or know.
Sound Cloud's reply rings a bit hollow to me. To rip off a tune you have to know where it is in the first place. These sites are mirroring the content of an account, not only ripping off. In my case there were two extra tunes by folks who had linked to my stuff in the list available which is wierd to say the least. it woud be interesting to know if when you download from them whether it shows on SC's stats.
As I interpret the response to Donna’s inquiry it appears SC has not hacked and the pirate site is not linking to your SC account when a song is played or downloaded from the ripoff site. They are recording the song (as I suggested in my OP) and uploading that to a sever for download and/or playing. Any of us could do that with available software. I can envision no way to prevent the recording of a streaming song or video.
But IMO they are obviously violating the copyright of every song they make available. Given that they are ripping off some big players they run the risk of getting shutdown by them.
Bud
PS The recording of files marked private is very strange. My few private files were not copied. Perhaps at some point the private files copied were public?
Our albums and singles are on Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Pandora and more. If interested search on Janice Merritt. Thanks! Our Videos
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
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It's SC's lack of willingness to do anything about it that PO's me. 
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