DJs who for years have become increasingly frustrated at having their mixes, mashups and remixes removed from SoundCloud have a new saviour, in the unlikely form of Apple Music.
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“Thousands upon thousands [of] cool mash-ups and hour-long mixes have effectively been pulled out of the underground and placed onto the world’s second-largest music subscription service”, the report notes. Until now, traditional music services were unable to offer unofficial remix content due to licensing challenges. “Delivering remix content to Apple Music through Dubset is an unbelievable development”, saidTiestoa DJ magazine top 5 ranked DJ and Dubset ambassador.
But licensing remixes and DJ mixes, both based on original recordings, is incredibly complex.
Dubset CEO Stephen White explains that a typical mix can include 25 to 30 songs which require payments to as many record labels and anywhere from two to ten publishers. 60-minute files takes around 15 minutes to process, after which it sounds like they’ll then be given permission for uploading on Apple Music. MixBank will study the recordings along with the controls and restrictions that are prescribed by rights holders.
Perhaps most interesting about Dubset’s set-up is that the mixer also earns royalties in addition to the artists, songwriters, labels and publishers whose tracks and songs feature, which makes sense, though online curators have to date struggled to grab a cut of the digital music dollar.
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“Remixes are a huge part of our culture”, said superstar DJ Steve Aoki.
