BMI -- which, like ASCAP, licenses and collects royalties for a massive back catalog of tunes -- announced the agreement via its website. The company said that Turntable.fm now has use of its more than 6.5 million works in the U.S.
These deals, along with last week's stateside Spotify launch, signal that the traditional music world is becoming increasingly comfortable with digital experiments.
Turntable.fm (it's beta, but can be accessed if one has a Facebook friend using the site) has been taking the web by storm of late, amassing around 300,000 users and tons of buzz. It's a series of musical chatrooms in which five DJs can spin tracks on demand via Medianet or by uploading their own music. Some users have wondered if the site is wholly legal, and Turntable.fm has been doing everything it can to stay within the law -- itshut down international usage recently in an effort to stay Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)-compliant (the DMCA is U.S.-only).