Apple Music has just announced that as part of a new partnership with Dubset Media Holdings, a digital content distributor, previously unlicensed remixes and DJ mixes will now be available for streaming legally.
Licensing remixes and DJ mixes has thus far largely proven too complex, given a single mix could have upward of hundreds of different rights holders. As a result, platforms where such mixes, remixes and mashups have proliferated like Soundcloud and Bandcamp have frequently frustrated users and listeners by taking down such music regularly after it has been uploaded due to copyright concerns.
As part of this new deal, Dubset has undertaken licensing agreements with over 14 thousand labels and publishers. This partnership with Apple Music will reportedly provide a means by which DJs and producers will gain royalties as well as the labels and rights holders.
Dubset will use a program called MixBank to analyse a DJ mix or remix file, which will identify the recordings used, before suggesting which labels and publishers are to receive royalties. To do this the program uses a database of three -second audio snippets from a Gracenote database. Once a song is cleared and confirmed it can be hosted for steaming on Apple.
This is the first time that labels and artists have been shown the real potential to make actual money off mixes, remixes and mashups, and could provide a boost to the industry which has struggled to monetise this area of streaming up to this point in time.
