Beatport is an American

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

-oriented

online music store A digital music store is a business that sells digital audio files of music recordings over the Internet. Customers gain ownership of a license to use the files, in contrast to a music streaming service, where they listen to recordings without ...

owned by

LiveStyle LiveStyle, Inc. is a Los Angeles-based live events conglomerate founded by media entrepreneur Robert F. X. Sillerman. The company was formed in June 2012 as SFX Entertainment—the new incarnation of Sillerman's previous company of the same nam ...

. The company is based in

Denver Denver () is a consolidated city and county, the capital, and most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Its population was 715,522 at the 2020 census, a 19.22% increase since 2010. It is the 19th-most populous city in the Unit ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

, and

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

. Beatport is oriented primarily towards

DJs A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs (who host programs on music radio stations), club DJs (who work at a nightclub or music festival), mobile D ...

, selling full songs as well as resources that can be used for

remixes A remix (or reorchestration) is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, poem, or photograph can all be remixes. The o ...

. Established in 2004, the service was acquired in 2013 by

Robert F. X. Sillerman Robert Francis Xavier Sillerman (April 12, 1948 – November 24, 2019) was an American businessman and media entrepreneur. Sillerman was the owner of a range of television and radio stations during the 1970s and 1980s, In 1993 he formed SFX Broa ...

's company

SFX Entertainment LiveStyle, Inc. is a Los Angeles-based live events conglomerate founded by media entrepreneur Robert F. X. Sillerman. The company was formed in June 2012 as SFX Entertainment—the new incarnation of Sillerman's previous company of the same nam ...

for a reported price of slightly over $50 million. In 2014, as part of an effort to widen its audience, Beatport expanded into original content oriented towards fans of electronic dance music, covering EDM news and culture, and offering on-demand music streaming from its catalog and live streaming events. SFX Entertainment filed for

chapter 11 bankruptcy Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code (Title 11 of the United States Code) permits reorganization under the bankruptcy laws of the United States. Such reorganization, known as Chapter 11 bankruptcy, is available to every business, whe ...

on February 1, 2016, and Beatport was subsequently put up for sale. However, in May 2016, SFX suspended its proposed auction of the company, and cut its streaming and original content operations in order to focus on its core music sales business. SFX has since emerged from bankruptcy as LiveStyle. Beatport emerged from the bankruptcy debt free and profitable and continues to operate as an online music store.

History

2004–2009: Founding

The first version of Beatport's web store, Beatport 1.0, was released on January 7, 2004 and consisted of 79

record label A record label, or record company, is a brand or trademark of music recordings and music videos, or the company that owns it. Sometimes, a record label is also a publishing company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the produ ...

s in its catalog. Half a year later, Beatport was beginning to become recognized after a few collaborations with well-known DJs and partnerships with the technology company

Native Instruments Native Instruments is a German company that develops, manufactures, and supplies music software and hardware for music production, sound design, performance, and DJing. The company's corporate headquarters and main development facilities are lo ...

. In January 2005, a revised Beatport 2.0 was released, with a catalog of over 100,000 tracks supplied by 2,700 signed labels. Beatport was also made accessible through a scaled-down GUI embedded within DJ software:

Traktor DJ Studio Traktor is DJ software developed by Native Instruments. It is also used as a sub-brand for Native Instruments' associated DJ hardware products. History Traktor was first released in 2000. The initial versions available were ''Traktor DJ'' ...

by Native Instruments. On August 7, 2006, Beatport released Beatport 3.0 Fully Loaded, the third version of its original store, which featured improvements to navigation, customized content subscription via My Beatport, and new payment options.

2007–2008: Beatport Player

In February 2007, Beatport launched the Beatport Player, a viral marketing web widget to play back relevant content by Artist, Label, Genre, and Chart. Built using

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a multimedia Computing platform, software platform used for production of Flash animation, animations, rich web applications, application software, desktop applications, mobile apps, mo ...

and HTML, the player gives users the ability to create custom, dynamic playlists from song previews of Beatport's catalog to be embedded into nearly any HTML website. In August 2007, Beatport launched a community-oriented music site, Beatportal, whose stated mission is "...to provide music lovers with up-to-date information about the world of electronic music". Following up on the idea of the community-oriented site, Beatport introduced th
Beatport Music Awards
on March 18, 2008. Each year Beatport users can vote for the best electronic music artists in an effort to trace the progress of these artists over the years or determine which has the largest growing fan base. The BMAs are broken down into 19 categories, including Best Artist categories from each genre, Best Remix, and Best Single. The nominees for the BMAs are based solely on unit sales at Beatport.

2009–2012: The New Beatport

The third version of the online store, named "The New Beatport", was released on January 21, 2009. Multiple features were added to the site including embedded artwork in purchased music, a new user-preference system named "My Beatport", keyboard shortcuts and sitewide multilingual support. As a newer version of the store, it integrated the use of an

Adobe Flex Apache Flex, formerly Adobe Flex, is a software development kit (SDK) for the development and deployment of cross-platform rich web applications based on the Adobe Flash platform. Initially developed by Macromedia and then acquired by Adobe Syste ...

3 web application provided by RealEyes Media. On July 14, 2011, Beatport launched their

HTML5 HTML5 is a markup language used for structuring and presenting content on the World Wide Web. It is the fifth and final major HTML version that is a World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendation. The current specification is known as the HTML ...

website with new features, designs and a new platform. Beatport officially added

AIFF Audio Interchange File Format (AIFF) is an audio file format standard used for storing sound data for personal computers and other electronic audio devices. The format was developed by Apple Inc. in 1988 based on Electronic Arts' Interchange File ...

downloads as an option on their platform on September 9, 2011. The annual revenue of Beatport for 2012 was reportedly around $15–18 million, with losses of $2 million.

2013–2015: SFX, pivot towards original content

In February 2013, Beatport was acquired by

Robert F.X. Sillerman Robert Francis Xavier Sillerman (April 12, 1948 – November 24, 2019) was an American businessman and media entrepreneur. Sillerman was the owner of a range of television and radio stations during the 1970s and 1980s, In 1993 he formed SFX Broa ...

, a conglomerate focusing on EDM properties such as festivals and promoters. Additionally, Beatport announced that it would partner with the music recognition service Shazam to index its catalog. In December 2013, the company laid off 20 employees in the Denver office and six in San Francisco, reportedly leaving the site's technical infrastructure supported by only a skeleton crew. Under SFX ownership, Beatport began to reposition itself towards the overall electronic dance music culture. On January 6, 2014,

Clear Channel Media and Entertainment iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...

(now known as

iHeartMedia iHeartMedia, Inc., formerly CC Media Holdings, Inc., is an American mass media corporation headquartered in San Antonio, Texas. It is the holding company of iHeartCommunications, Inc. (formerly Clear Channel Communications, Inc.), a company fou ...

) announced that as part of a wider marketing partnership with SFX, it would syndicate a Beatport top 20 countdown show to its major-market

contemporary hit radio Contemporary hit radio (also known as CHR, contemporary hits, hit list, current hits, hit music, top 40, or pop radio) is a radio format that is common in many countries that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by ...

stations beginning later in the year. Clear Channel staff, including

John Sykes John James Sykes (born 29 July 1959) is an English guitarist, best known as a member of Whitesnake, Thin Lizzy and Tygers of Pan Tang. He has also fronted the hard rock group Blue Murder and released several solo albums. Following a stint in ...

, believed that the deal (particularly the Beatport countdown show) would help provide a higher level of national exposure to current and up and coming EDM artists.Clear Channel and SFX Strike Electronic Dance Music Marketing Deal
from ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'' (January 6, 2014) In December 2014, Beatport revamped its website to extensively target mainstream fans of electronic music, adding original content (such as news articles), as well as live streaming shows and

festival A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...

coverage. Additionally, Beatport launched a free music streaming service, which allowed users to stream full-length songs from Beatport's library, as well as curated playlists and charts. Beatport CEO Greg Consiglio and executive creative director Clark Warner explained that only 300,000 of the site's 50 million unique users had actually purchased music from the service, and that the majority of users were using the Beatport store's time-limited samples of tracks for music discovery instead. In March 2015, the site launched a

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

, featuring the streaming service, and a "Beatport Shows" feature which highlights upcoming events and provides integrated access to ticket purchases. The streaming service is subsidized by Beatport's store, which was re-branded as Beatport Pro (in concert with the service's desktop client software) and remained primarily focused towards professionals.

2016–present: SFX re-organization, LiveStyle

Beatport incurred US$5.5 million in losses for 2015. In March 2016, as part of SFX's bankruptcy, the company announced that it planned to auction off Beatport and digital firm Fame House (the latter eventually sold to

Universal Music Group Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch– American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

) to focus more on its live events business. On May 10, 2016, Beatport announced that the auction of the company had been suspended, and that it would instead cut back its operations to focus solely on its music sales business—resulting in the discontinuation of Beatport's streaming, live and original content operations. The company also announced layoffs as it underwent restructuring, with as many as 49 employees departing the workforce. In September 2016, Italian record label Art & Music Recording called for an investigation into allegations that third-parties had artificially inflated the download counts of several of its songs ("juicing") on Beatport, which caused Beatport to remove the songs under policies prohibiting labels from making purchases of tracks to increase their chart performance. In December 2016, SFX emerged from bankruptcy under new leadership, and renamed

. The company's CEO, Randy Phillips (formerly of

AEG Live Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft AG (AEG; ) was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in Berlin as the ''Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität'' in 1883 by Emil Rathenau. During the Second World War, AEG ...

) stated that Beatport had returned to profitability. In October 2017, Robb McDaniels was announced as CEO of Beatport. In May 2019, Beatport announced two new subscription services tailored towards professional DJs: Beatport Link is a streaming service allowing music from the platform's library to be streamed directly into supported DJ software.

Pioneer DJ Pioneer DJ is a brand that represents the company's range of DJ products. In March 2015 KKR acquired an 86% percent stake from Pioneer Corporation. Again, in March 2020 KKR and Pioneer Corporation sold their respective stakes to Noritsu. DJ p ...

served as a launch partner, offering integration through its newly-developed mobile app WeDJ, and announcing that Rekordbox would support Link later in the year. Beatport also announced Beatport Cloud, which features full track playback, a management interface, and unlimited redownloads of purchased songs. In May 2022, it was announced Beatport had acquired the music discovery portal, LabelRadar.

2019: Beatsource

In February 2019, Beatport announced a joint venture with digital music record pool company DJcity, forming Beatsource, a digital music retail platform aimed at open-format DJs. Around that time, Beatport had 450,000 active DJ customers and 35 million

unique visitors Website popularity is commonly determined using the number of unique users, and the metric is often quoted to potential advertisers or investors. A website's number of unique users is usually measured over a standard period of time, typically a m ...

per year. In August 2019, producer and DJ

A-Trak Alain Macklovitch (born March 30, 1982), known by his stage name A-Trak, is a Canadian DJ, record producer, and record executive. He came to prominence in the late 2000s as an international club DJ and remix artist, known for incorporating highly ...

joined the board of managers as an advisor.

Music catalog

At launch, Beatport offered tracks from 79 electronic music labels to customers worldwide. Over the years, the company has grown and expanded its music catalog to include more artists and differentiations of the electronic genre such as house, techno, drum & bass, and dubstep. Sales of sample packs and remix stems, in the "Beatport Sounds" section, grew from an annual revenue of $600,000 in 2010 to $39.1 million in 2015.

Digital rights management

All tracks on Beatport are provided free of

DRM DRM may refer to: Government, military and politics * Defense reform movement, U.S. campaign inspired by Col. John Boyd * Democratic Republic of Madagascar, a former socialist state (1975–1992) on Madagascar * Direction du renseignement militai ...

. There are no restrictions on the number of devices to which a purchased song can be transferred nor the number of times any individual song can be burned to CD.

Awards

;International Dance Music Awards (

IDMA The International Dance Music Awards or IDMAs is an annual awards ceremony held in Miami Beach, Florida, United States as a major part of the Winter Music Conference. The awards have been held every year since the conference's creation in 1985 ...

) * 2006: Best Dance Music Retailer and Best Dance Music Specialty Retailer * 2007: Best Dance Music Retailer * 2008: Best Dance Music Specialty Retailer * 2009: Best Dance Music Website (awarded to Beatportal.com) and Best Specialty Retailer * 2010: Best Dance Music Website (awarded to Beatportal.com) and Best Dance Music Specialty Retailer * 2011: Best Dance Music Specialty Retailer * 2012: Best Dance Music Specialty Retailer * 2013: Best EDM/Dance Music Retailer * 2014: Best EDM/Dance Music Retailer

References

External links

Official website

Beatport top tracker
{{DJ Award-Special Award for Outstanding Dedication , state=collapsed Companies based in Denver Online music stores of the United States Internet properties established in 2004 2013 mergers and acquisitions Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2016 2022 mergers and acquisitions