“From a lawyer standpoint, an API is a very efficient contract,” says Lucchese. “It’s as if you said, ‘Here’s my stuff, and here are the rules, and as long as you play by the rules, we’re good to go.’ ” Legitmix accomplishes this automated licensing process in a particularly clever way. Rather than asking the artist to pay for the rights to the sample, Legitmix asks the end consumer of a mix or track to buy the songs that are part of the remixed work. Legitmix also gives a cut to bloggers who feature the track or mix. In other words, Legitmix isn’t just a track licensing platform, it’s also a gigantic self-reinforcing affiliate network for selling new music. And if you’re wondering why artists finally signed on to something like this, forgoing their usual up-front licensing fees, it’s probably because copyright law has been so broken that mega-hit albums like Danger Mouse’s Grey album, which mashed up Jay-Z’s The Black Album and the Beatles’ The White Album, made no one any money at all, unless you count the positive effects it had on Danger Mouse’s reputation and concert sales.