What you need to know
- Apple has come up with a way to compensate artists who appear in DJ mixes.
- The company says it will use technology from Shazam.
- It is working on a way to fairly divide streaming royalties between DJs, labels, and artists who appear in mixes.
Apple Music says it has come up with a way to identify artists who appear in DJ mixes so they can be compensated for their work.
From TechCrunch:
Apple Music announced today that it's created a process to properly identify and compensate all of the individual creators involved in making a DJ mix. Using technology from the audio-recognition app Shazam, which Apple acquired in 2018 for $400 million, Apple Music is working with major and independent labels to devise a fair way to divide streaming royalties among DJs, labels, and artists who appear in the mixes. This is intended to help DJ mixes retain long-term monetary value for all creators involved, making sure that musicians get paid for their work even when other artists iterate on it.
In a statement on behalf of Apple DJ Charlotte de Witte said that Apple "is the first platform that offers continuous mixes where there's a fair fee involved for the artists whose tracks are included in the mixes and for the artist making those mixes" and that the move was a step in the right direction that would see everyone get treated fairly. As part of the announcement Apple is going to host more DJ sets on Apple Music, including an archive of mixes from Studio K7!'s DJ Kicks. Apple appears to have nailed down the technology required to do this and is now working on how exactly to divide royalties between everyone involved.
