When a track has been blocked for infringement, either by our content ID system or in response to an infringement report, you can file a dispute if you feel like a mistake has been made.

When logged in to your SoundCloud account, you can visit https://copyright.soundcloud.com/disputes to see the blocked tracks on your account.  From there, you can select which track takedowns you would like to dispute.  Follow the instructions and provide the requested information.  Be sure to provide enough detail about your rights so that our team can properly assess your claim.

Once filed, our team will review and may reach out if more information is required.  We review each dispute individually so we appreciate your patience.  

What kind of information is needed for your dispute to be accepted?

If you have uploaded your own content that has been misidentified or matched with content delivered by your digital distributor for copyright protection, our Copyright Team may accept your dispute or reach out for more information.  Please be sure to provide details about your ownership or creation of the uploaded track.  If you only state that the track has been misidentified but do not provide details about your work, then we may not be able to reinstate your track.

If you have uploaded content created by someone else but you have the required permissions to upload to SoundCloud, please be sure to provide ample information about your permissions.

Such permissions are usually granted in the form of a license.  Your license should contain the scope of your rights such as where you can upload, whether you can monetize, or how many streams are allowed.  If you have a label/distributor, we may ask for their confirmation since they may also have rights in the distribution of this content.  Our team might reach out as part of the dispute process if more information is needed.

If you feel that your use of someone else’s content falls under fair use or a copyright exception, please be sure to provide your reasoning in plenty of detail for our Copyright Team to review. 

If you uploaded content that was created by someone else and you do not have the required permission or your use does not fall under fair use or a copyright exception, then your dispute will be rejected.  This is also an invalid reason to file a dispute.

If your track was manually reported for infringement by a rightsholder, then you will need to resolve the dispute with them.  When we receive a report, copyright law requires us to remove the track.  We are generally unable to accept a dispute for a track that was reported to us.  We understand that this process can be frustrating, but unfortunately we are not able to make a determination as to which party is telling the truth.