Your taking this conversation into the realms of litigation is far-stretched. Is really too much to ask of a music consumer to pay $1 for something they’ve made? Is $1 too much for this new, rich music experience? If it is, they can enjoy it for free on the site and on the web.

First off, this is outrageously great and (probably) should be made very clear in the terms of the site.

Meanwhile, if a fan comes to your site, creates a remix using your tool and wants to download and share their the music on other (noncommercial) sites then that is nothing but pure promotion for the artist and your site (assuming proper attribution is in place).

It costs you or the artist nothing - and ends up being free promotion by people passionate about your content/product.

In your world, a remix-fan who tries who tries to do this without paying $1 is in violation of the copyright/license and therefore a federal criminal.

Besides being oblivious to the realities of the Internet (those that want to copy their own remix without paying $1 have already done it) it’s a terrible way to treat the people you should be coddling the most - fans willing to spread the word about your site’s music without charging *you* anything for that service.

Are you willing to sue this fan for the $0.15 lost in this scheme? If not then why even offer it?? If yes then you would be the first to build a profitable business for musicians by killing off your artist’s fan base and restricting exposure in this way.

When we get licensing deals for music made on our site, our cut is 15%.

have I ever said sharing is an anathema to profit? no.

have I ever said it’s not up to artist to decide? no.

does magnatune license (”monetize”) samples? yes.

does magnatune have “complete transactional history that shows what music is used and what royalties are owed”? of course.

I’ve been sampling their artists for 5 years and the artists have been sharing in the profits from my sales from the first $1 that came in.

The difference is, they won’t treat their fans who remix and share them, people who are happy to promote their music for free as criminals. But I guess you leave it up to musicians which one of their fans MixMatchMusic is going to sue for $1?

btw, you’re cut is 15% of that dollar - but it was unclear to me from reading your website what your cut is when you land a licensing deal with a film. Is your cut 15% in that case as well?

In the meantime, if Jamendo or Magnatune or anyone else wants to monetize their stems, our service facilitates this and provides complete transactional history that shows what music is used and what royalties are owed. Ultimately, we leave it up to the musician to decide if art is for art’s sake, or for profit.