Cybaris® Volume 12 Issue 1 Article 2 2021 Infinite Setlist: Analyzing Pioneer DJ’s Catalogue Streaming Partnerships with Beatport and SoundCloud Nicholas Rivera Follow this and additional works at: https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cybaris Part of the Entertainment, Arts, and Sports Law Commons, and the Intellectual Property Law Commons Recommended Citation Rivera, Nicholas (2021) "Infinite Setlist: Analyzing Pioneer DJ’s Catalogue Streaming Partnerships with Beatport and SoundCloud," Cybaris®: Vol. 12 : Iss. 1 , Article 2. Available at: https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cybaris/vol12/iss1/2 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews and Journals at Mitchell Hamline Open Access. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cybaris® by an authorized administrator of Mitchell Hamline Open Access. For more information, please contact [email protected]. © Mitchell Hamline School of Law CYBARIS®, AN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW REVIEW INFINITE SETLIST: ANALYZING PIONEER DJ’S CATALOGUE STREAMING PARTNERSHIPS WITH BEATPORT AND SOUNDCLOUD Nicholas Rivera1 Table of Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 36 The Story Thus Far ................................................................................................................... 38 The Rise of Streaming .............................................................................................................. 39 Brief History of DJing & Pioneer ............................................................................................. 41 Why It’s Important ................................................................................................................ 41 The DJ’s Evolution ............................................................................................................... 43 SoundCloud............................................................................................................................... 46 Beatport ..................................................................................................................................... 48 How the Platforms Work .............................................................................................................. 49 Beatport ..................................................................................................................................... 49 Beatport Link Subscription ....................................................................................................... 49 Beatport Link Pro & Beatport Link Pro+ ................................................................................. 50 SoundCloud Go+ Subscription ................................................................................................. 51 Terms of Use ................................................................................................................................. 52 Generally ................................................................................................................................... 52 SoundCloud............................................................................................................................... 53 SoundCloud’s Terms & Agreements .................................................................................... 53 SoundCloud Terms of Use – UGC ....................................................................................... 56 SoundCloud Representations, Warranties, & Liabilities ...................................................... 57 SoundCloud Go+ Terms ....................................................................................................... 59 Beatport ..................................................................................................................................... 60 Beatport’s Terms and Conditions ......................................................................................... 60 Beatport Link Terms of Use ................................................................................................. 66 Rekordbox’s End User Agreement ........................................................................................... 70 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 73 1 This author is a student at Mitchell Hamline School of Law, with expected graduation in May 2021. His biographical information can be found on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thenickrivera/. 35 Published by Mitchell Hamline Open Access, 2021 1 CYBARIS®, AN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW REVIEW Introduction In the past 15 years, DJing has become a popular art form across the world because of music’s low cost and the popularization of personal computers.2 Personal computers and devices with strong computing power – like smartphones – give easy access to digital platforms that allow anyone to play music, manipulate the music in real-time, play multiple sound recordings over each other, and sample different sound recordings in real-time. Although some of the widely available tools are exciting for hobbyists to use, a professional grade software and hardware combination has become the industry standard for professional grade performances. Pioneer DJ (“Pioneer”), a brand recently purchased by Noritsu Koki Co., Ltd. (“Noritsu”), is a DJ hardware and software company that has become the professional standard for professional DJs.3 For the purposes of this research, “professional” refers to DJs who perform at venues that hold more than a few hundred people. Pioneer has become the standard DJ equipment in the music industry because of its near-flawless combination of hardware and software.4 One of the major ways that Pioneer established itself as the industry standard was by allowing DJs to perform music stored in USB flash drives and SD cards, or an external hard drive.5 This meant that DJs were no longer required to carry CD cases for performances and now had access to a far greater quantity of music than what a CD could hold.6 Recently, Pioneer’s flagship software Rekordbox (“Rekordbox”) partnered with SoundCloud Limited (“SoundCloud”), a music streaming and hosting service that allows users to 2Chal Ravens, A Decade of DJing: How Technology Changed the Art Form, DJ MAGAZINE (Feb. 5, 2020, 5:00 PM) https://djmag.com/longreads/decade-djing-how-technology-changed-art-form. 3Dan White, Pioneer DJ Just Got Sold To Noritsu, A Photo Printer Manufacturer, DJ TECHTOOLS (Mar. 2, 2020), https://djtechtools.com/2020/03/02/pioneer-dj-just-got-sold-to-noritsu-a-photo-printer-manufacturer/. 4 Jordan Rothlein, Industry standards: Pioneer CDJ (Oct. 3, 2013) https://www.residentadvisor.net/features/1910. 5 Id. 6 Id. 36 https://open.mitchellhamline.edu/cybaris/vol12/iss1/2 2 CYBARIS®, AN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW REVIEW upload, download, listen to, like, and comment on other users’ music.7 Rekordbox has also partnered with LiveStyle, Inc., Beatport, LLC, Beatport International LLC and Beatsource LLC (collectively, "Beatport"), a digital music storefront that allows users to buy and download music in various high-quality file formats.8 The purpose of these individual partnerships is to use the vast libraries of music from the music hosting platforms in Rekordbox without having purchased music from either platform.9 This is revolutionary for DJs using Rekordbox because the only restraint placed on what a DJ can play is the catalog of each platform. This research does not intend to argue whether Beatport or SoundCloud’s compensation structure is fair to musicians. Compensation structures on each streaming platform are constantly changing. With the passage of the Orrin G. Hatch-Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act (“MMA”), the Mechanical Licensing Collective (“MLC”) will standardize mechanical license collection and royalty distribution.i It is also worth noting that the platforms’ policies may change at any time. The purpose of this paper is to examine the partnerships Rekordbox has with SoundCloud and Beatport, determine if user agreements of each platform legally allow the partnerships to occur, what the implications are of using the music streaming service for live performances at venues, what the implications are of streaming music for live streamed performances via the internet, satellite radio, and terrestrial radio, and determine which types of copyright royalties need to be paid to who and by whom. 7 SoundCloud, YOU CAN NOW MIX SOUNDCLOUD TRACKS WITH PIONEER DJ’S REKORDBOX (Sep. 10, 2019) https://blog.soundcloud.com/2019/09/10/you-can-now-mix-soundcloud-tracks-with-pioneer-djs-rekordbox/. 8 DJ Mag, YOU CAN NOW STREAM BEATPORT'S ENTIRE CATALOGUE TO REKORDBOX DJ (last accessed Dec. 2, 2020) https://djmag.com/news/you-can-now-stream-beatport-rekordbox-dj. 9 Dan White, Rekordbox 5.6.1 adds Beatport LINK and Soundcloud Go+ streaming libraries (Sep. 9, 2019) https://djtechtools.com/2019/09/09/rekordbox-5-6-1-adds-beatport-link-and-soundcloud-go-streaming-libraries/. 37 Published by Mitchell Hamline Open Access, 2021 3 CYBARIS®, AN INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW REVIEW The Story Thus Far Revenue streams in the must industry have changed significantly over the past 25 years. Music sales peaked in the late 1990’s when consumers were limited to buying music through physical media such as compact disks (“CD”), cassettes, and vinyl.10 In 1999, Napster,