"8tracks" is a website that allows users to legally share their music through online mix tapes. A mix is a short playlist containing at least 30 minutes, roughly 8 tracks, of music. On 8tracks, people can do two things: listen to a mix, or create a mix. Listeners can search for a mix by artist or genre, stream it in a legal, radio-style manner, and follow others who make compelling mixes. DJs upload MP3s or select tracks from the 8tracks library to craft a playlist, add context with description and art, and publish their mix on 8tracks.com and a personal webpage.

8tracks was founded in 2006 by David Porter, ex-GM at Live365 and developed by a team in New York City and San Francisco. On Aug 8th, 2008 8tracks was launched for public use.

8tracks is a non-interactive internet radio service that has elected to operate under the compulsory license for webcasting established in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998. The compulsory license covers 8tracks' transmissions of copyrighted sound recordings (and the server copies created by 8tracks to facilitate such transmissions), and the royalties that 8tracks pays to SoundExchange, an entity designated by the Copyright Royalty Board to collect and distribute compulsory royalties, are allocated equally among the copyright owners of sound recordings (typically a record label) and the recording artists (both featured and non-featured) on such recordings.

Under the terms of the compulsory license created by Congress, a non-interactive webcaster can transmit any sound recording that has been lawfully released to the public, provided that the webcaster complies with various statutory and regulatory provisions, including:

Following a set of programming rules that limits the number of songs that may be transmitted from any one album or any recording artist on a given channel or playlist during a three-hour period;

Pays a royalty rate either negotiated with representatives of copyright owners or established pursuant to a proceeding conducted by the three judges on the Copyright Royalty Board;

Reports to copyright owners the songs that have been transmitted on the service, pursuant to negotiated reporting requirements or requirements adopted by the Copyright Royalty Board, so that SoundExchange may allocate and distribute such royalties to individual copyright owners and recording artists.

In addition, 8tracks has licenses with ASCAP, BMI and SESAC for the public performance of musical works (the notes and lyrics in a sound recording), the royalties for which are distributed to publishers and songwriters.