Dubset Media, a US-based royalty facilitation platform developer backed by music streaming platform Rhapsody and entertainment rights manger Medianet, has been acquired by royalty attribution service Pex, TechCrunch reported.
Financial terms of the transaction have not been officially confirmed but sources told TechCrunch the deal was likely sized at $25m to $50m.
Dubset’s technology helps ensure remixed music and multi-song sets created by DJs can be streamed legally by online services such as such as Rhapsody or Spotify.
The company has generated unique identifiers – a process known as fingerprinting – for more than 45 million tracks to date, making it possible to automatically identify songs used in remixes and ensuring the original artists receive royalties.
Pex scans platforms with user-generated content, such as Facebook and TikTok, to identify copyrighted video and audio. It then enables rightsholders to negotiate a licence, request a take-down, demand attribution or track engagement with the content.
The Dubset acquisition will give Pex access to the company’s catalogue and partnerships with record labels as it pushes adoption of a new service that directly plugs into audio streaming platforms, identifying audio and video files as short as one second even if they are covers.
Pex expects the deal to strengthen its business proposition at a time when the European Union is due to remove safe harbour protection from websites, requiring them to identify and remove copyrighted materials even before they receive a take-down request.
Dubset closed a funding round of undisclosed size in 2014 led by Rhapsody that included unnamed music and technology companies.
Medianet subsequently contributed to a $4m series A round for the company that was led by Cue Ball Capital and backed by Neoteny 3, Resolute Venture Partners and Redwood Venture Partners three years later.
