BlueBeat Music

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

BlueBeat, Inc. is an internet music service founded in 2003 (originally as Music Public Broadcasting) and based in Santa Cruz, California. It creates “Psycho-Acoustic Simulations,” sound‑alike versions of existing songs. CEO Hank Risan says the goal is to cover a wide range of musical tastes, restore degraded older recordings, protect digital content from piracy, and ensure artists are paid fairly.

How it works: BlueBeat’s engineers study original recordings, break them into parts, build new musical scores, synthesize replacement sounds, and place the results in a virtual 3‑D sound stage as MP3 files. The company licenses rights from major music groups (Harry Fox Agency, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC) and holds Section 112 and 114 webcasting licenses. It pays royalties through SoundExchange and has licensed Media Rights Technologies’ SCMS patent portfolio to protect and monetize its content.

BlueBeat claims to offer more than 2.2 million tracks. In 2009, it offered simulated songs for about 25 cents per download, including Beatles songs, which led to a copyright dispute with EMI. A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order against BlueBeat to stop selling the Beatles simulations, and BlueBeat stopped them while the case proceeded. The company settled the EMI suit for $950,000 with no admission of liability, stating it had licenses and royalties in place.