Unable to retrieve specific public tracks using SoundCloud API calls (403)

Question

Some tracks in my playlist do not return when accessed through the SoundCloud API.

For example, here are two tracks in my playlist:

• http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/169170570?client_id=CLIENT_ID
• http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/251027701?client_id=CLIENT_ID

The url for track 1 returns a JSON object and also displays correctly in my / playlist. However, track 2 gives me 403 in the above URL and is not present in the request for my / playlists.

Why is this happening? As far as I can tell, track 2 is publicly available and should be accessible. Interestingly, I can still pass track 2 by adding / stream to the end of the url:

http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/251027701/stream?client_id=CLIENT_ID

What's going on here?

Answer 1

Most likely, the artist blocked access to the API for this track.

SoundCloud introduced the ability to copyright holders to disable all access to the tracks by default, returning this error 403 on request

C: SoundCloud API URLs and then return a 403 error on approximately 50% of the tracks