It will soon be possible for DJs to stream a limited number of DJ edits of songs directly from one of the major music streaming services. This comes with the announcement from Beatsource LINK of the first of several new partnerships with labels and distributors.
The first batch of tracks with the all-important 15 to 30 seconds of instrumentals added at the start and end to aid mixing will be available as of next week, including edits of hits by Fat Joe, Rich The Kid, Busta Rhymes, Anderson Paak, Robin Thicke, DJ Chose, Funkmaster Flex, Tory Lanez, and the Insomniac Records catalogue.
Furthermore, Beatsource LINK and sister streaming service Beatport LINK tell us they are are actively engaged with the major labels to ensure that their content is also included as fully approved and licensed DJ edits. (This would of course be the “holy grail”.)
Learn how to do this for yourself: Make Your Own DJ Edits
“DJs have been playing modified versions of songs since DJing was invented,” says Brian “DJ Quickie” Wong, President of Beatsource.
“While streaming has saved the music industry from over a decade of declining revenues, DJs were left out of this wave of innovation because they were never officially provided with the content they need.”
“Not only does this collaboration create, for the first time, an authorised and monetised channel to stream DJ edits, but artists will gain unprecedented insight into how DJs are playing their music.”
“We can now track things like how many plays a song is getting in the clubs, who played it, and performed to what size audience.”
It is not known at this stage whether other types of edits and tools that DJs use – for instance short edits, clean edits, DJ remixes and so on – will also be made available through the same channels.
The Beatsource music streaming service is available for a monthly subscription in DJ platforms such as Serato, Rekordbox, Virtual DJ, djay Pro, and Engine OS.
• To try Beatsource LINK, sign up for a free trial on the Beatsource website.
Our Thoughts
DJ edits have been a mainstay for open format DJs for years. They are traditionally obtained through pro DJ download pools. Indeed, one of the parent companies of Beatsource is none other than leading download pool, DJcity.
Their legality has always been grey, though, with spats between download pools and record companies a regular occurrence. So getting them fully licensed is a major coup for Beatsource LINK.
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And while this first wave are from independent labels and distributors, if what Beatsource says is correct and negotiations are nearly done with the majors, then soon one of the major drawbacks of using Beatsource LINK (or indeed any music streaming service) for spinning open format will have been dealt with.
Read this next: The Best Music Streaming Services For DJs
And as for the other music streaming services? You’d imagine TIDAL might be interested in doing something similar as it has made a concerted push into the DJ world, but we wouldn’t expect them to appear in Apple Music or Spotify, for instance, any time soon. DJs are simply not on the radar of these mainstream services, which of course are currently not even available in DJ software.
What does this mean for download pools?
Worth noting too that these fully licensed re-edits will also be available to DJcity “traditional” download pool users, which by our reckoning makes DJcity the first download pool to offer demonstrably legal re-edits.
Whether this leads to a “clamp down” on other pools, or whether the labels and distributors extend the same privileges to DJcity’s competition, remains to be seen.
What do you think of this development? Let us know in the comments.
Phil Morse
