In what could pave the way for a re-launch in the UK, streaming and virtual club night site Turntable.fm has announced deals with ASCAP and BMI, the two major publishing rights collecting societies in America.

As previously reported, the US based site was generating a huge buzz prior to its shutdown, with established artists such as Diplo and Little Boots using the site to debut recordings of new tracks.

Turntable.fm is currently still in beta with invitations only through Facebook friends already on the site. 300,000 users have signed up so far and recording rights are taken care of in a deal with SoundExchange.

The service allows users to discover new tracks and create a virtual club room from music streams, DJing with other members and battling it out for audience approval. Each room has up to five DJ slots, with users taking turns whilst listeners rate them as either ‘awesome’ or ‘lame’.

There have been questions surrounding the legality of the site in allowing users to play tracks outside of current licensing agreements but it has been protected by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in the US, which allows for “non-interactive” streaming audio without requiring licences from labels and artists.

The deals with collecting societies should bring the service one step closer to legitimacy in the eyes of the industry and could lead to eventual global reach, potentially rubbing up against the likes of Spotify and Pandora in the streaming stakes.

Thanks to the “The Gen”