Announced today is Sony Music’s new deal with New York-based technology company, Dubset Media. Sony becomes the first major music company that will partner with Dubset to help their artists and rights holders earn royalties for material used in DJ mixes streamed online.

With Dubset’s MixBANK technology and cross clearance network, samples are identified in recordings and then proper credit can be given to the respective labels and rights holder. Dubset’s goal is to offer a robust solution for managing the use of DJ and remix content and monetize this music effectively to approved streaming platforms.

News of Sony jumping on board with Dubset comes a little more than a year after the tech company struck deals with both Apple Music and Spotify, allowing long-form DJ mixes and single track remixes to be legally uploaded and streamed on these huge streaming platforms. Dubset is still considered a startup company, but has so far partnered with about 35,000 smaller labels and publishers. Chief Executive of Dubset, Stephen White, told The Wall Street Journal that having Sony sign on is “a huge validation of what we’re doing.” 

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Founded in 2010, Dubset is the only company to have successfully navigated audio fingerprinting and rights management technology that can detect every sample used in a song or mixset based on a database of 100 million master recordings. While sample-heavy remixes may rarely be sold for profit, many artists use the tactic of adding a recognizable song to their remixes in order to gain more promotion. White said that the average DJ mix is 64 minutes long and contains 22 songs, with interests held by more than 100 different rights holders. The sheer volume of artists and rights holders that this technology will impact is groundbreaking.

Today’s music streaming environment is extremely complex and music fans are listening to countless hours of remixes and DJ sets online. White went on to tell WSJ that the cross-clearance network has been a heavy technology build and that Dubset is still working towards license agreements with other labels. Their new partnership with Sony opens up plenty of discussion and makes us wonder which big label will be next to join.