Spotify and Apple Music to allow unofficial remixes and accommodate mixes

Spotify and Apple music are set to allow unofficial remixes and mixtapes thanks to a collaboration with Dubset. This is all well and great for consumers and creators but SoundCloud is definitely going to go through a tough time. SoundCloud’s unique selling point was user-uploaded content and the partnership emerging between Dubset and Spotify/Apple would level the playing field.

The mechanics as to how this works is quite simple; Dubset scans an entire mix and matches every part of the audio file to its Mixbank of snippets of official songs based on Gracenote’s audio fingerprinting database. Dubset then confirms the match and distributes royalties (based on number of streams) to the correct rights holders and legal authorities. Basically, if you’ve bootlegged a new Calvin Harris track and put it up on Spotify, you’ve got Dubset to take care of all things on the legal spectrum.

The deal comes at a time where Spotify are reportedly in late stages to buy out SoundCloud and this could easily reduce the acquisition cost. With user-uploaded, unofficial content being SoundCloud’s major USP, it looks like the German company wonn’t have much to offer on the bargain table.

Apply struck their deal in March and Spotify confirmed theirs with Dubset in May. The first wave of remixes are finally beginning to stream today, starting with this DJ Jazzy Jeff remix of Anderson .Paak. Spotify has just confirmed that short mixes are now allowed and longer ones are on the way.

H/T: TechCrunch