The BMI deal came this morning, hot on the heels of the service announcing an ASCAP agreement yesterday. Turntable.fm has been getting an absurd amount of buzz over the last couple months, amassing around 300,000 users in just two months.
Since its inception, the site's legality has been questioned, since users inside the "music chatrooms" can play tracks either from Medianet or by uploading their own music. It even lead to a shut down of international usage back in late June due to licensing constraints.
In a statement sent out from BMI, Richard Conlon, Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy, Communications and New Media said: "We are pleased to have reached an agreement that guarantees the more than 475,000 songwriters, composers and copyright owners BMI represents receive fair compensation for their creative efforts." In turn, Jon Bahr, director of marketing for ASCAP had a similar statement, "It's great to see a tech start-up securing an ASCAP license from the outset, ensuring songwriters, composers and publishers will be paid fairly if the site succeeds."
It seems in recent years we've seen more of these licensing deals met before a site launches or closely thereafter. The recently launched Spotify was on hold until it received the ASCAP license, and Apple's iCloud was dealing with similar proceedings. Perhaps if SESAC (Society of European Stage Authors and Composers) gets on board, we'll see Turntable.fm pulling out of the beta garage soon.
