Beatport, the online store and streaming service for electronic music, has written to record labels that they won’t be payed their due royalties from the past quarter, due to its parent company SFX Entertainment‘s ‘going private’ process.
The process, which Beatport believe should come to an end in the next few weeks, also sees the record labels getting paid just a meagre 5% of the streaming money for mixes.
While there hasn’t been any announcement on when the payments will be made, here’s the transcript of the letter from Beatport to the labels below.
“Since inception over 10 years ago Beatport has paid almost $200,000,000 to its label partners. Beatport’s parent company, SFX, is currently involved in a ‘going private’ process that has trapped certain earned label payments. This process will be coming to an end in the next few weeks, at which time all payments will be able to be made.
Beatport prides itself on being the broadest and original friend of the makers of electronic music and will clear this one time obstacle very shortly. In the meantime, feel free to contact your label manager with any questions. Thank you for your patience and continued support.”
A label owner, who did not wish to be named, said “Over 80% of our download revenue comes from Beatport sales alone because its the most trust download platform for electronic music. The problem for most labels is cashflow, we’ve been waiting for this money to pay our own outstanding bills over the last three months.”
Source: Music Business Worldwide and DJ Mag
Leave a Reply