SoundCloud uses the most widely supported streaming protocol to ensure your sounds can be played everywhere, by everyone, across the web. When someone hits play on a track, the technology behind this streaming protocol kicks in to ensure the track plays. By using a widely supported streaming technology, we can ensure your content is playable on all devices and browsers.
Websites can exploit inherent vulnerabilities in this streaming technology, allowing them to rip the stream and provide it for download elsewhere. This means they cannot download the original file you uploaded with us, but instead can only stream the audio (128 kbps). This is the downside of using a system that lets you be heard by everyone, everywhere.
There are other streaming protocols that are considered to be more secure, but sadly, they are not as widely supported. By switching the streaming protocol we use, your content would not be playable on certain browsers or devices, preventing people from playing your tracks.
While we are doing all we can to improve this situation, there are several 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: