Madeon Claims Sony Will Strip His SoundCloud Account

The impasse between Sony and SoundCloud over monetization concerns looks to have claimed another artist, after the French electronic producer Madeon took to social media on Tuesday to harp about the impending takedown of “all” of his music on the Berlin-based streaming service.

Following a recent breakdown in licensing negotiations, Sony Music removed original recordings from the SoundCloud pages of more than a half-dozen artists, including Adele, Miguel, Kelly Clarkson and Hozier. An executive familiar with the nature of the talks told Billboard earlier this month that the takedowns were due to “a lack of monetization opportunities” on the platform.

Sony Pulls Adele, Miguel, Others From SoundCloud In Licensing Impasse

Madeon, born Hugo Leclercq, announced to his 345,000 followers that Sony planned on taking music down from his SoundCloud account in “the next few days.” (It’s still there as of Wednesday morning.) Asked why by EDM duo The Knocks, Madeon responded that Sony’s apparent move was “against my will.” He then thanked SoundCloud for helping people discover his music over the years and snarked, “Well done Sony for holding your own artists hostage.”

The 20-year-old artist’s first full-length album, Adventure, debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s Top Dance/Electronic Albums chart in early April. The set, via Sony imprint Columbia Records, includes vocal assists from Kyan, Foster the People‘s Mark Foster and Bastille‘s Dan Smith, among others.

Madeon’s ‘Adventure’ Leads to No. 1 on Top Dance/Electronic Albums

Minutes after voicing his displeasure for Sony, Madeon clarified that he had “lots of love” for Columbia, but not so much for “Sony Corporate’s disconnected-from-reality strategy.”

Until recently SoundCloud and its mostly unlicensed content was completely free to its more than 350 million monthly users. In August the company debuted its first monetization strategy, the ad-supported tier On SoundCloud. In November SoundCloud announced a formal licensing agreement with Warner Music Group, however talks with Sony and the third major, Universal Music Group, have not been as successful.

A spokesperson for SoundCloud told Billboard earlier this month, “We are in ongoing conversations with major and independent labels and will continue to add partners to the program.” A Sony rep for Madeon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Here’s Madeon’s mini-rant in full:

Sony will take down all of my music from my SoundCloud account in the next few days, let’s have a farewell listen : https://t.co/SHZd49hnwj

— Madeon (@madeon) May 19, 2015

@theknocks Against my will.

— Madeon (@madeon) May 19, 2015

Thank you SoundCloud for being such a great discovery platform over the past five years. Well done Sony for holding your own artists hostage

— Madeon (@madeon) May 19, 2015

(Lots of love for my label Columbia of course, they’re great. Less love for Sony Corporate’s disconnected-from-reality strategy.)

— Madeon (@madeon) May 19, 2015

Anyway sorry to bore you with corporate nonsense but wanted to have a little Madeon’s Soundcloud account commemoration !

— Madeon (@madeon) May 19, 2015