The Roll20 Team
Late last night Roll20’s access to the SoundCloud API was shut off. Roll20’s growth has caused SoundCloud more than once over the past four years to question as to whether or not our integration of their service was within the intent of their API; previously we have been grandfathered in for additional use when SoundCloud changed their API Terms of Use in June 2015.
We maintain that the Roll20 community added to the SoundCloud community– be it the vast amount of tracks that were tagged for “Roll20,” the specific music created for use in our interface, or simply our own pride in spurring the discovery of and credit for sound artists via the Roll20 Jukebox dashboard.
If you want to let SoundCloud know you’re disappointed by this decision, please respectfully do so. Particularly if you are a music artist that has uploaded to SoundCloud with the intent of sharing it via Roll20, we appreciate you contacting them to express your displeasure.
We have no expectation of our SoundCloud API access being restored, and as such will be exploring additional audio services to bring to Roll20 users. As things stand...
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Live now for just over a year is the content Tabletop Audio. They continue to add new, long-form tracks that make or a great background to your adventures.
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We have recently signed a deal with BattleBards to bring their music to Roll20, so look forward to that soon.
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While it remains a popular suggestion, we are uncertain about utilizing YouTube-as-sound on Roll20, as YouTube’s API specifically prescribes against audio-only uses.
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Given Roll20’s strong record of avoiding DMCA Takedown notices, we remain hesitant to allow direct audio uploads, as the potential for misuse is too great.
The Roll20 Jukebox’s access to the SoundCloud API has been a fantastic boon to the free users of both services. While we are not yet sure what our future audio plans are, we feel like this is a part of the community and experience that has for the time being fallen beneath our standards. Know that we’ll be working on solutions in the weeks to come.
