Early this year SoundCloud embedded content ID technology into its site. Due to the predominance of DJs and remix artists on SoundCloud, Hypebot feared this move might have negative and unintended consequences. According to a new report, it has. Staff writer Miles Raymer at the Chicago Reader says SoundCloud may be raining on its own parade.

Once the content ID technology went live, Raymer reports that many DJs grew upset because it "zaps entire hour-long mixes, even if they contain just a small segment of a single copyrighted track." Many thought such mixes were protected under fair use and now "feel betrayed" by the site, "given that DJs were the early adopters that helped the site reach critical mass," Raymer writes. Due to such content policing and the increased use of SoundCloud by artists in other genres, he believes the era of DJ dominance of SoundCloud "may be coming to an end."

Lastly, Raymer argues that SoundCloud is at a crossroads:

"Right now its practices appear to defer to rights holders, allowing labels and publishing companies to determine almost unilaterally what counts as infringement—a stance that puts an undue burden on uploaders whose employment of copyrighted material might meet the criteria for fair use.

Were SoundCloud to take the nobler and more difficult path, it would devise a policy that could differentiate between DJs and remixers on one hand and pirates on the other. Of course, it's easier and cheaper for SoundCloud to just keep serving DMCA notices to its most passionate users—though taking that route could drive off enough of them to make it very expensive indeed."

What's your opinion?