Billboard has announced a new deal between Apple Music and Dubset Media Holdings that will allow users to listen to remixes and DJ sets on the streaming platform, two areas that were previously unavailable due to licensing issues.
The agreement effectively makes “thousands upon thousands of cool mash-ups and hour-long mixes” available to stream on Apple Music.
What allows this deal to work is a new bit of technology developed by Dubset called Mixbank, a program that scans mixes and recognizes copyrighted material. If Mixbank finds a copyrighted sample, it will know who owns the copyright in order for the right people get payed royalties.
Stephen White, the company’s CEO, says that there are roughly 25-30 tracks in a mix, which means that 25-30 different labels need to be paid. Mixbank is able to make this payment process much easier.
“The new revenue and royalty potential once this content moves to authorized music services is enormous based on the amount of this content that’s already being streamed without approvals and royalties,” says Get Physical Records CEO Roland Leesker.
Dubset already has licensing agreements with over 14,000 labels and publishers, with more currently in their sites.
“The goal is to bring this to all 400 distributors worldwide,” says White. “When you think about unlocking these millions of hours of content being created, it’s significant monetization for the industry.”
[via Billboard]