Producer and DJ Zak Khutoretsky A.K.A. DVS1 has launched a new revenue sharing platform called Aslice.
The platform works by asking DJs to voluntarily share a percentage of their performance fee with the producers who create the music they play in a set. DJs are recommended to share 5% of their fee. For example, if a DJ was paid $5,000 for a set, $250 would be set aside for producers. If there are 20 producers on the setlist, each one would get $12.50.
It may not sound like a lot, but with DJs all over the world playing sets it can add up. For reference, it would take a producer around 5,000 streams on Spotify to make the same amount.
Many compare the role of Aslice to that of a Performing Right Organization (PRO). These groups collect and distribute royalties on behalf of artists registered with them. The issue with PROs, however, is that many of them do not accurately report data. Bad metadata, unreported setlists, and a lack of educational resources for producers make it so that a lot of revenue goes unshared.
During their private beta, Aslice reported that DJs uploaded 110 setlists featuring 5,291 tracks. Each list contained an average of 49 tracks, coming out to an average of $1.49 per track. Some tracks made as much as $10 or $20, depending on the donation amount.
In an interview with DJ Mag, Khutoretsky shared optimism about the project. “So many DJs want to do the right thing and just need an ‘easy button’ to do that,” he said. “Once we show them the simple process and almost immediate results from our system, they seem to be convinced of the possibilities quite fast.”
