We had a chance to sit down with Mitch Rubin, Vice President of DUBSET Media to discuss progress that’s been made in the, so-called, “unofficial” remix area.

Pleasure to have you Mitch, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and DUBSET Media ?

Thank you, for having me. The pleasure is mine.

About myself: I’ve been involved in music publishing for over 25 years and have been with Dubset for about 18 months. I spent the first 11 years with the original BMG Music Publishing in New York, London, and Sydney. I held several senior management positions there, the last being the Managing Director of BMG Music Publishing Australia from 1995-2001. After a few independent, entrepreneurial things, I became Global Head, Music Publishing Business Affairs for Nokia’s (& subsequently Microsoft’s and Line’s) music services including Comes With Music and MixRadio.

I’ve been fortunate enough to have witnessed the evolution of the industry from physical sales to various compelling digital offerings.

As for Dubset, In a nutshell, we’re a young company focused on using technology to enable legal distribution by DJs of User-generated content to subscription streaming services, while providing Rights Holders with tools to better control and monetize their catalog in these types of uses. As you know, virtually all of this content currently resides on user-generated ad-supported services. By making the content available to legally licensed subscription services, we expect the fans of this music to migrate to subscription streaming services for the benefit of all stakeholders.

Through direct agreements with labels and music publishers, agreements with distributors, and agreements with music publishing administrators, we have over 450,000 Rights Holders on our platform (called MixBANK).

On the content distribution side, our partners are currently Apple, Spotify, and Tidal. We are in discussions with others and hope to add more in the future.  

On a high level, MixBANK works as follows: Rights Holders that join send us their metadata; they choose which of our distribution partners they wish to make their content available; and, through the tools we provide, set any usage rules. DJs upload mix and remix content. The technology in MixBANK analyzes and identifies the underlying master recordings, attributes the associated metadata – both master and composition – to the recordings, runs it through a cross-clearance network, and once the content clears, it is distributed to the selected partner services. It all happens in near real time. It’s pretty amazing.

We tag each piece of content with a unique identifier so when plays are reported by the service to any licensing entity, the content can be properly identified, claimed, and paid to the correct rights holder.

Recent highlights are a Mix Room in the Apple Music Service called DJ MIXES + LIVE SETS that is substantially populated by content from Dubset, including mixes from Steve Aoki, Oliver Heldens, and underground darlings like Green Velvet and Latroit;  and powering the Mix Series in the recent partnership between Apple and Ministry of Sound.

Nowadays about anyone with a laptop has the ability to sample or cover his favorites tunes (with more or less talent) and put it online in the blink of an eye.

Why bother clearing ?

The simple answer is that it’s illegal. Neither I nor Dubset support distribution of unlicensed copyrighted material. There are a host of other issues associated with distributing unlicensed content, both philosophical, and economic.

You’ve hit on some really important points. First, the fact is that unlike, say synchronizations, the volume of user-generated Mix and Remix content being created is too large to handle with one-off licenses each time. It requires a scalable solution and that’s what Dubset has created.

Second, because it’s so simple to create content and upload it without clearing, the solution for legal clearance has to be simple. Our mission – at least for user-generated Mix and Remix content – is to make it easy for anyone, from a professional DJ, to the person using their laptop and software in his/her bedroom, to create great content while at the same time satisfying Rights Holders that their content is properly licensed, identified, claimed, and compensated.

The Music Industry is famous for being called a “Jungle”, wich can be a bummer for mosts Artists. How does DUBSET manage to deal with Rights-Holders, Record Companies and Publishers at the same time ?

I certainly wouldn’t characterize the Music Industry as a jungle. I agree that it has its inherent complications, especially with respect to composition rights.

Having said that, I believe that dealing with Rights Holders involves credibility and persistence. Relationships help, too. But I think that any company that is trying to sell a service must be able to articulate a credible value proposition and be willing to understand, appreciate, and address the issues and concerns of the Rights Holders.

To be fair, not all Rights Holders have the same attitude, either. In my view, the more forward thinking ones see the benefit in experimenting, getting real-world feedback, and seeing what does or doesn’t work. They understand that at the end of the day, fans decide who is and isn’t successful. These rights holders recognize that there are a lot of fans of UGC Mix and Remix content and want to satisfy the consumer demand. Others, for reasons that are rarely articulated, choose to stay on the sidelines, and only participate after others take the plunge, so to speak.

I should mention that Rights Holders that are on MixBANK have the ability set usage rules for any of their artists, songwriters, tracks or compositions, so I’m not quite clear why any Rights Holder would choose not to participate and reap the benefits of what I see as a significantly undervalued market.

I think that we’ve done a great job of balancing the interests of Mix and Remix content creators and Rights Holders to satisfy a consumer demand, mainly in the US, and we’re now hoping to do the same outside the US.

Soundcloud has often been criticized for hosting such unlicensed Remixes. On the other side many Artists & Users have been complaining about not knowing how to deal with these copyright matters.

What’s your advice for Artists & DJ’s who benefit from the “sampling era” ?

I’d rather not comment about SoundCloud’s licensing practices. I should also point out that we should make a distinction between Covers and Remixes. Cover recordings are usually covered by statute or convention in most countries, so they wouldn’t be something involving Dubset. Remixes, on the other hand generally involve some kind of alteration of the original recording and composition which are usually not covered by statute or convention and thus require approval of the copyright holder. So I’ll limit my answer here specifically to User-generated Mixes and Remixes – not cover recordings – if that’s ok.

As I said, we believe that all distributed content that uses copyrighted material should be licensed and I encourage people using the content to seek proper licenses. I realize that it’s challenging but it’s the right thing to do. We built our platform to simplify the clearance process for those DJs who’s work is based on copyrighted content.

My guess is that with the ratification and eventual implementation of Article 13 in the EU, unlicensed content on UGC sites will diminish significantly. Our hope is that these players come up with a solution like we have at Dubset with services like Apple, Spotify, and Tidal, which does not stifle the creativity of the people generating the Mix and Remix content, and also enables legal distribution. Needless to say, we are happy to work with the EU and/or any music service, including UGC services, to make this happen.

For instance, one of our Artist , @AxMod built his career on such popular mixes & remixes.