Beatport, the dance music marketplace now owned by SFX Entertainment, has just announced a new feature of their streaming service that launched in March—an embeddable music player that will allow consumers and blogs to stream full tracks from the streaming-arm of their site, reportedly providing rights holders and artists compensation for each and every stream. When news of the streaming section first came to light, it meant Beatport, a company world renowned for selling music, would now be providing it to their customers for free and the artists will still get paid.Like Apple, Jay Z, and perhaps even your entrepreneur uncle Joel, Beatport has entered the streaming game. The company's announcement comes during interesting times for the streaming industry as just two days ago media was hit with Taylor Swift's open letter to her fans (and Apple Music), announcing her decision to withhold her hit album, 1989, from Apple's forthcoming service. While she labeled herself a longtime admirer and ally of Apple, Tay Tay slightly chastised the tech empire for not paying artists and rights holders during the three month free trial period their service will soon provide consumers. Some internet conspiracists have already branded her outcry as merely cleaver PR as shortly after her op-ed hit the interwebs, Apple announced they will be paying artists during the trial period. Additionally, SoundCloud has just caused a stir with news that their streams will be capped at 15,000 plays per day for third party APIs, a move towards monetization, and their own survival against emerging entities like Tidal and Apple. Streaming has never been more volatile.Examining these recent happenings in the streaming sphere, one must note that Beatport's number one competitor in selling dance music is Apple and its iTunes marketplace, so it makes sense that as the folks in Cupertino gear up to launch their streaming service, one that promises fair compensation to artists thanks to T-Swiz, Beatport must follow suit in their own way.While currently Beatport has only came forth with the news of an embeddable player that will feature full streams of for-sale music, this is part of a larger foray into a competitive streaming service for electronic music. The exact percentages of their compensation to artists and right holders is unknown at this time.
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