8Sided Blog

thoughts about music’s place in the 21st century

A DJ’s Spin on Music Recognition Tech

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It’s no secret that a popular topic on this blog is audio recognition technology as a means to determine royalty payments from public establishments. I wrote about it yesterday. And I wrote about it previously. And previously.

PRS is testing music recognition technology in bars and nightclubs in the United Kingdom. According to Synchtank’s blog, there’s been an unexpected roadblock:

[AEFM’s Greg Marshall] adds that they are speaking to DJ agents to ensure they are getting on board with the moves by clubs and bodies like PRS, specifically addressing the non-record clause some DJs have in their contracts (to ensure their sets are not bootlegged or what they are playing is listed online). […] “We are just starting the process of talking with the bigger agents to see if they can amend their clause so it has an exception for music recognition technology,” explains Marshall.

I could see privacy (eavesdropping) concerns as a complaint against constant monitoring. But we are now allowing smart speakers/listeners in our homes so ¯_(ツ)_/¯. And I imagine the venue’s sound system is directly fed into the monitors, and not a literal microphone hanging out in the club.

I doubt DJs are worried about PRS recordings their sets or that monitoring reveals all their super-secret hottie tracks. The problem is a clause traditionally appearing in most DJs’ contracts that prevents recordings from happening for those reasons. The venues, understandably, want to adhere to the artist contract.

Is audio monitoring technically a recording? Regardless, this is a wild hiccup in the effort to use music recognition tech to determine accurate venue performance royalty distribution. DJs — add an exception in your contracts!

🔗→ Electronic Money: Dance Music and the Protracted Pursuit of Payment

Dubset’s Major Move

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TechCrunch:

Spotify and Apple Music could soon get the legal grey area of music like remixes and DJ sets that today live unofficially on SoundCloud. Sony Music Entertainment today became the first major record label to allow its music to be monetized through unofficial mixes thanks to a deal with rights clearance startup Dubset. That means Sony’s master recordings will be indexed by Dubset, and rights holders will be compensated even if just a tiny one-second snippet of their song is used in a DJ set or remix.

A source tells TechCrunch that Dubset is getting closer to securing deals with the other two major labels Warner and Universal.

If it can lock down all three, remixes and DJ sets featuring almost any music could be legally hosted on the top streaming services instead of being barred or removed for copyright infringement. That might eliminate the differentiation that’s kept struggling SoundCloud afloat. Illegal music uploaded there has sometimes flown under the radar since SoundCloud is protected by Safe Harbor law regarding user generated content. But if it’s legally available on Spotify, Apple Music, and elsewhere, listeners wouldn’t have to go to SoundCloud.


Could we be stepping closer to a mainstream acceptance of remix culture? A future where derivative works are not only allowed but encouraged is a divergent music future, indeed. As previously stated on this blog, if you can clear unauthorized remixes using Dubset, then why not clear samples eventually? We might be entering an era where most music is fair game for creative mutation, and the original artists get paid. How will that work with songs already released, especially the ones that sneakily didn’t clear drum loops or other samples? Should clearance lawyers start looking at new career options?

As far as Apple Music and Spotify go, I really can’t see them opening up their services to user-uploaded content a la SoundCloud. I’m ready to be surprised, but I do think those predictions are off the mark. The Verge gives a clue to where this might be headed for the two big streamers:

DJ mixes have historically proved to be especially difficult for monetized distribution. “The average mix is 62 minutes long and has 22 different songs in it, and those 22 different songs are represented by over 100 different rights holders,” {Dubset CEO Stephen} White tells The Verge. Using Dubset’s technology, a 60-minute mix can be processed in just 15 minutes.

During that 60-minute mix, White says, MixSCAN will fingerprint every three seconds of audio. “We’re using a combination of audio fingerprinting technologies and fairly advanced algorithmic approaches to identify the underlying masters that are being used in a mix or a remix,” he says. Although MixBANK asks DJs themselves to identify the masters, White says this is just to help validate MixSCAN’s results.


Apple’s Beats 1 Radio regularly broadcasts sets by newsworthy artists and celebrities, but the Beats 1 platform still fails to make the news. These DJ events need exposure outside of the ephemeral original broadcast. Wouldn’t it be nice if the sets were recorded and archived, and then available to play on demand via Apple Music? I think that’s what’s happening here. A different sort of license is required to make these DJ sets available on demand, and every song (and, yes, unofficial remix) must be cleared for this type of usage. Theoretically, Dubset’s technology would not only clear the songs in the mix, but it would be able to do so in 15 minutes. A Beats 1 set could be available to stream on Apple Music within thirty minutes of its broadcast. Voilà. And I’d wager Spotify has similar ambitions.


Previously and Previously and Previously

Destroying the Perfect

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On the Building New Law podcast, Seth Godin had this to say:

We always destroy the perfect before we enable the impossible. For example, sonically CDs are not as good as vinyl, and MP3s are not as good as CDs. But this degradation is necessary to get to the technological point of ‘every song in your pocket,’ and audio quality will someday catch up.


And we’ve seen it before. The eight-track tape: sounded like crap but you could play it in your car. Then came the cassette, also crappy but you could go for a run with a Walkman at your hip. Compact discs eventually improved the quality and kept the mobility. But there’s another level of convenience that no one anticipated, which is the convenience of library and access. This facet was the promise of “every song in your pocket,” and that means it was a step back to move forward, courtesy of relatively lo-fi MP3s.

Are we now at the technological point of ‘catch up’ Godin mentions? For many of us, the bandwidth is now there, and bandwidth has been the primary constraint. Is it time to seriously upgrade our stereo systems for streaming? From BBC News:

Qobuz, along with rivals Tidal and Deezer Elite, offers streaming of “lossless audio” that throws nothing away.

“Is MP3 as interesting as it was ten years ago? Not really, because bandwidth has improved,” says Malcolm Ouzeri, head of marketing at French streaming and download provider Qobuz, founded in 2007. “Now the industry is going towards more quality.”

The highest quality MP3 has a bit-rate of 320kbps, while a hi-res file can go as high as 9,216kbps. Music CDs are transferred at 1,411kbps.


There is also talk of Spotify launching a lossless audio option. Some users report seeing this option in limited test cases. And then there’s the adoption of the LUFS standard by Spotify and other streamers, showing a renewed attention to sound quality. But many of these services make hi-res an add-on option. The rumor is that Spotify’s hi-res audio will be available as part of a more expensive monthly plan, as Tidal currently offers. A Qobuz ‘highest quality’ subscription is presently £349.99 a year.

I’m not sure if hi-res audio will make an impact as long as it’s seen as an add-on for those with extra change to spare. Even the option titles – such as Deezer Elite – make hi-res seem elitist. I don’t know what the additional costs are to the providers, but it will be wonderful to finally enter a world where hi-res audio is a sole and affordable option as bandwidth grows and accelerates. Once we’ve arrived, the only ticket for entry will be our choice of speakers.