The song that changed my life doesn’t belong to me. Part 1 - The opportunity that got away.

I co-wrote and produced a song called “Overload” with my band Life of Dillon.

Billboard Top 40.

Over 100 million streams.

The Chainsmokers remixed it during the exact moment they were exploding globally with “Roses” and “Don’t Let Me Down”.

That remix became one of their biggest remixes on SoundCloud. 

Then more producers started making bootleg versions and mashups with Avicii and Gryffin.

The song kept multiplying.

Some of those versions did millions of streams too.

One of my favourites was by Pierce Fulton (RIP 🙏🕊️).

We were a community, connected by one song, spread across the internet, building on each other’s work.

It was one of the most exciting creative experiences of my life.

But none of us could monetize any of it properly.

Not me.

Not the remixers.

Not the communities spreading the music across SoundCloud, YouTube, blogs, and forums.

Because music collabs went global before the infrastructure existed to support them.

Nobody did anything wrong.

The Chainsmokers got paid a flat fee for their remix.

The bootleg producers were just making music they loved.

The communities were just sharing something that moved them.

The system worked exactly as designed.

The system just wasn’t designed for what music actually does.

Music doesn’t stop when it’s released.

It becomes the beginning of something else.

Other creators hear it, feel something, build from it, and take it somewhere the original never imagined.

That’s not a problem. That’s music doing its job.

The problem is that the infrastructure stops at the first transaction.

No creative lineage.

No licensing for derivative works.

No profit sharing across the version chain.

No way to say:

this came from that, and value should flow accordingly.

Just uploads.

Virality.

And rights chaos.

I’ve thought about "Overload" a lot over the years.

What if every version of that song, from the original, to The Chainsmokers remix, to the bootlegs, mashups, and edits that followed, had been part of a system that recognized what we collectively created together, and paid us all?

What if the producers making those versions could have licensed them properly, distributed them commercially, and shared in the value they helped generate?

What if music collabs actually had infrastructure?

That question became an obsession.

That obsession covered the walls of my small studio apartment in diagrams.

Those walls became a company.

vers1ons is remix licensing and distribution infrastructure.

You upload your track.

You set your terms - license fee, royalty splits, distribution preferences, who can remix it.

Global creators discover it, pay the fee, make their version, and distribute to Spotify, Apple, TikTok, YouTube, and beyond.

You earn on every license.

You earn on every stream of every remix.

And when someone remixes the remix - v3, v4, v5, forever - value traces automatically back through the creative chain to the original.

The infrastructure that should have existed when “Overload” went viral in 2015.

And today we’re quietly opening applications for the vers1ons private beta.

For artists, producers, remixers, and rightsholders who believe collaboration deserves better infrastructure.

For the people who’ve watched their music travel further than the infrastructure allowed.

Apply at vers1ons.com/apply

Part 2 tomorrow.

The contract.

The silence.

The walls covered in diagrams.

And the four years it took to build the answer.

I'm David Johnston.

Founder & CEO of vers1ons.

And I think the next era of music should finally work for the people who actually make it.