“Premium” streaming platforms usually avoid DJ mixes. This is mostly because accurately calculating royalties for all of the samples is a problem. These songs can be found on platforms like SoundCloud, but there might be many numbers of rights holders, from the DJ to the original artist, labels, and even a festival or venue. To address the issue and significantly increase the amount of DJ-mixed content available on the platform, Apple is partnering with big and indie labels to develop a model that identifies and pays rights holders directly. Furthermore, the company has employed Shazam technology to accomplish this for Apple Music.
According to Apple, the new capability would allow the streaming service to identify and recompense individual producers in a DJ mix, including musicians who recorded any sampled music. Apple Music is the first big streaming service to do so. The company claims it is working with all shareholders involved to provide equitable pay, including DJs, festivals, clubs, promoters, curators, and independent labels. Individual tracks, collections, compilations, and even whole festival sets will be accessible to stream on Apple Music like studio albums, according to Apple, giving DJ mixes a longer income shelf life.
Apple Music already has hundreds of DJ mixes, and the service claims to be adding more all the time. In addition to holding content from Tomorrowland’s 2020 and 2021 digital events, the firm also has mixes for Black Music Month and Pride. There will soon be a lot more options thanks to this new system.
Apple Music noted that the DJ-Kicks library from !K7 will be accessible to stream starting this Friday. 14 of the editions haven’t been “on the market” in over 15 years, according to the label. Alesso, Charlotte de Witte, David Guetta, Diplo, Major Lazer, Martin Garrix, The Chainsmokers, Tisto, and others’ performance at Tomorrowland, which was previously impossible to stream will be more easily available now. Mixmag is also opening up its vault, and livestream platform Cercle will have a dedicated hub on Apple Music where fans can listen to archived mixes and live performances. Most of this will be available for lossless streaming, as well as offline listening.
Apple isn’t the first company to try to manage royalties for DJ mixes. Apple Music began working with Dubset in 2016 to bring previously unlicensed content to the platform. Dubset used a Gracenote database to identify and assign rights to clips. Original artists could even prevent their music from being utilised in mixes and limit how much of a tune may be repurposed using the method. In 2020, Pex purchased Dubset, and the system is now utilised to scan social media audio and video content for unlicensed content. Apple’s new Shazam-based system, on the other hand, compares all elements of a mix to Apple Music’s 75 million song catalogue.
As you might expect, all of the new content will be easily accessible. DJs will have artist pages if they don’t have any original music, according to Apple. While the company is currently focusing on DJ mixes, the company claims that this method may be used for a variety of purposes, including allocating royalties for hip-hop remixes and more.
