Show Notes
This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Eliah Seton, CEO of SoundCloud. Eliah breaks down how SoundCloud is evolving beyond streaming into a creator-first platform focused on fan relationships, monetization, and artist discovery. Why “streaming is not enough” for artists, how fan-powered royalties work, the future of direct-to-fan monetization, and why creator tools are becoming more important in the AI era. Eliah also explains SoundCloud’s approach to generative AI music, ethically trained AI models, and why the platform refuses to monetize fully AI-generated songs.
Follow Eliah Seton and SoundCloud: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eliahseton/ https://soundcloud.com/
Check out Ari’s Take: https://aristake.com
08:27 - Eliah Seton on the Future of SoundCloud 13:41 - Why “Streaming Is Not Enough” for Artists 18:15 - Fan Monetization, Merch, and Direct-to-Artist Revenue 22:03 - How SoundCloud Helps Artists Get Heard and Build Fans 27:14 - Creator Subscriptions and Fan-Powered Features 31:24 - Wallets, Tipping, and the Future of Fan Transactions 36:01 - AI Tools for Music Creation and Artist Discovery 40:48 - SoundCloud’s Approach to Ethically Trained AI 47:17 - AI Music, Royalties, and Streaming Economics 52:08 - The Future of Human Artistry in the AI Era
Edited and mixed by Ruben Zarate Music by Brassroots District Produced by the team at Ari’s Take
Order the THIRD EDITION of How to Make It in the New Music Business: https://book.aristake.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
More from The New Music Business with Ari Herstand
This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Joe Lim, founder and CEO of Floodify, a marketing technology company that has distributed over 2 million short-form videos for major labels including Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, and Sony Music.
This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Toni Nelson, artist manager, business manager, and co-founder of 1990 Records.
This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Alexis Lanternier, the CEO of global music streaming platform Deezer. Together, they break down the massive influx of AI-generated music flooding streaming services, Deezer’s pioneering efforts in AI detection and fraud removal, and the future of fair artist payouts through user-centric royalty systems.
This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Patrick Laird, cellist and co-founder of the classical cover duo, Brooklyn Duo. Patrick breaks down how he and his wife built a music career without traditional touring. He discusses their journey from viral YouTube videos to building an evergreen passive income model, navigating revenue streams across Pandora, Spotify, and YouTube, the intricacies of sheet music publishing, catalog acquisition offers, and why creating utility-based music enabled the creative freedom to pursue personal projects.
This week on the New Music Business podcast, Ari sits down with Nashville-based singer-songwriter Jared Benjamin. Jared broke down how he went from picking up a guitar during the pandemic to earning over 100 million streams, selling out headline tours, and building an intensely loyal community across TikTok and Discord. They discuss his creation process, content strategy, delegating production, leveraging pre-save ad campaigns, and releasing his debut album, Icarus Too Close to the Sun.