SoundCloud’s tug of war with the music industry may finally be over.

On Friday, the streaming music service announced that it had signed a licensing deal with Sony, after more than a year of talks and plenty of public posturing. The deal is the last that SoundCloud needs to legitimize itself with the major powers of the music industry, after similar arrangements with Warner Music, Universal and Merlin, a collective of independents.

With these deals in place, SoundCloud — which offers more than 100 million songs free — is clear to offer its long-promised version for paid subscribers, and said in a statement that this version would be released “later this year.” Record companies favor paid platforms over free ones, which are typically supported by advertising, because they pay higher royalty rates.

“This agreement creates a business framework for the use of Sony Music songs on the SoundCloud platform that meets the needs of our artists and labels and supports the growth of SoundCloud through its new premium on-demand music tier,” Dennis Kooker, Sony’s president of global digital business and United States sales, said in a statement.

The deal will cover the licensing of Sony’s music around the world. It could mean that a free version of SoundCloud would have just a sampling of Sony’s music, while a majority of its music would be available on a paid version of the service.