A new partnership between Spotify and Dubset has been announced at the International Music Summit in Ibiza, opening the door for DJ mixes and individual remixes to be uploaded and streamed through the platform.
Not only does this now give DJs the ability to upload their mixes without licensing headaches, it also now gives regular Spotify users the ability to stream mixes, radio shows and remixes that were not previously available. The partnership with Dubset will allow Spotify to identify and compensate artists where their original works are being used in a mix or being sampled / remixed.
With digital rights, artist revenue and mix takedowns being a hot topic amongst DJs recently, this news adds another option to the growing list of legitimate platforms to host DJ content.
When choosing a platform to host DJ mixes it's also important to consider the audience you're trying to reach and how suitable the service is to get this content to them. Will the huge user base of Spotify have an impact on how far your sets can go? With smaller DJ / radio oriented platforms such as Mixcloud, there may be an advantage with a more actively engaged group of users who are actively searching for and listening to mixes?
As the tidal (pun alert) wave of content being uploaded continues to grow (almost 300 hours per minute to Youtube...) the art of curation is more important than ever. While technology is being developed to automate this to a degree, there's a huge interest in the human aspect - and DJs are as important as they ever have been.
Pat Shah, head of original content licensing at Spotify: "DJs have long been recognized as the greatest curators of music in the world. We look forward to working with Dubset and the biggest and best DJs in the world to continue to lead the industry by providing our consumers with the best content available in the market."
What do you use currently? Would you consider switching?