[HN Gopher] The Twitch DJ Program
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The Twitch DJ Program
Author : maxbaines
Score : 49 points
Date : 2024-06-07 10:03 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.twitch.tv)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.twitch.tv)
| peauc wrote:
| That's pretty cool. I'm looking forward to seeing how it pans out
| with records companies though..
| saaaaaam wrote:
| This is a licence that has been negotiated with record
| companies and music publishers. So they are on board.
| matclayton wrote:
| Have you got a reference for how they are tackling publishing
| rights? I've been looking for it and only found references to
| labels so far.
| jasrys wrote:
| They haven't licensed publishing (at least not yet).
| Source: am publisher
| prox wrote:
| My only concern is that actually the big guys get the big cut,
| and the DJ and the original artists (that are not wildly
| popular) the shortest end of the stick.
| mandibeet wrote:
| This is an ongoing issue
| gareth_untether wrote:
| Wondering if this means regular streams can use music. There's a
| lot of artists and game devs that would benefit from background
| music.
| soneil wrote:
| The second-last paragraph seems to cover this. In short, no -
| but it seems reasonable to believe this could be a solid
| stepping-stone on the path from here to there.
| wavemode wrote:
| Many, many streamers have been getting away with streaming
| copyrighted music for a while now, by simply not recording VODs
| (or, recording them in such a way that the music is excluded).
|
| My understanding is that this practice is still technically
| illegal (since live-broadcasting music without recording it is
| still something you need copyright permission for), but
| significantly more difficult for record companies to crack down
| on.
| riskable wrote:
| If you just want background music that won't set off any DMCA
| alarms use one of the generative AI music tools. Even the
| _examples_ and 10-second tests are probably good enough (just
| loop them), LOL
|
| By law they can't be copyrighted since they were generated by
| AI.
| mandibeet wrote:
| I think it only connected with DJ Category
| Faskil wrote:
| What a joke.
|
| > DJs opted into the program will not be able to save VODs,
| Clips, or Highlights to Twitch. > Our program does not allow you
| to stream pre-release tracks
|
| Those two conditions alone show you how much they have no clue
| what a DJ does and this new "program" is just a way for the
| majors to be even more greedy.
| BlobberSnobber wrote:
| Yeah, I wonder what this even does besides taking a bigger cut
| from the DJs streaming revenue.
|
| I also love how the problem they say they want to solve has the
| most meaningless description ever and is not actionable at all.
| lysp wrote:
| The other thing is DJs already have to pay their local record
| industry organisation licences to be able to perform music
| publicly.
|
| This seems like double-dipping.
| diggan wrote:
| AFAIK (at least here in Spain), it's the venue that is
| responsible for paying this license fee, not the DJ
| themselves. Unless you organize your own events/play at
| your own venue, obviously.
|
| Probably works differently everywhere though...
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Same thing in France (SACEM). The venue pays the fees,
| and it is dependent on the scale of the event, the
| entrance fees, etc... The DJ doesn't have to pay
| anything, he just plays the music the venue has paid for
| the right to play.
|
| And it is essentially the same thing with Twitch here, as
| Twitch pays the necessary fees that allow the DJ to
| perform on their platform.
|
| It may be different in some other countries indeed. I
| think in Germany, home of the infamous GEMA, DJs have to
| pay a fee in certain conditions, in addition to what the
| venue pays.
| Forbo wrote:
| I'm not super clear on the situation, but I have a brother
| that DJs at a local venue. Their biggest complaint was that
| even though they had obtained their broadcast license they
| couldn't livestream their sets on Twitch. Not sure if this
| offering now resolves that issue, or how other platforms
| are handling those situations. Seems like it would make
| more sense for the platforms to require proof of the
| performers licensing rather than handling the licensing
| themselves.
| matclayton wrote:
| Co-founder of Mixcloud here. We've been doing live streaming and
| licensed for years at this point
| (https://www.mixcloud.com/pro/live) Surprised it took twitch so
| long to make these deals happen, but it shows how complex these
| deals are to navigate, and congrats on them for doing so!
| Interested to see how this pans out and glad to see others in the
| field figuring out the licensing and not just ignoring it.
| DevX101 wrote:
| Twitch has lot more content creators who aren't streaming music
| so getting a deal done immediately wasn't their #1 priority.
| matclayton wrote:
| 100% its way less than 1% of their streams, the CEO said as
| much recently. However that doesn't mean that the music
| labels are ok with copyright infringement being on the
| platform. I guess this is the real question, they clearly had
| to do a deal or shut it DJ's on the service. They chose to do
| the deals, so will they now lean into it as its an active
| area for investment, or was it a necessity to avoid a lawsuit
| etc. Time will tell, and its great to see them addressing
| this problem and the playing field being levelled for
| everyone else we was already paying for rights.
| 1zael wrote:
| I'm curious if Twitch explored a partnership with you all at
| Mixcloud, given you had the deals and infra all built out. In
| hindsight that would've been a much more efficient process For
| Twitch, but as a former employee I also understand Twitch is
| averse to integrations with third-party companies that create
| dependencies on their ability to control their own destiny.
| matclayton wrote:
| We've talked to twitch on and off over the years, but nothing
| specific to this. Music licensing data pipelines are a
| massively complex topic and very hard to get right. Its one
| of those areas you can only appreciate having done it. It
| looks trivial from the outside, my guess is they will be
| starting that work now, and in about 6-12 months time the
| complex reality of it will start to set in. Ironically the
| hardest part isn't even figuring out the track, its figuring
| out which major label owns the rights for it, in the
| territory it was streamed, on the day it was streamed. This
| is even more complex on the publishing side, where you can
| have multiple writers.
| input_sh wrote:
| I wonder how long until Twitch also gets forced to some rather
| arbitrary rules set by the record companies, like how you can't
| do "best of Daft Punk" on Mixcloud (too many songs by one
| artist).
|
| Jokes aside, kudos to you for coming up with what's been the
| only available legal option for the past decade or so! Judging
| by this, your platform will still have some advantages:
|
| > No Vods, Clips, or Highlights
|
| > DJs opted into the program will not be able to save VODs,
| Clips, or Highlights to Twitch. VODs, Clips and Highlights
| involve different rights than live streams. We are creating
| additional promotional and discovery opportunities to extend
| the reach and impact of DJ content.
| matclayton wrote:
| It'll depend a lot on the deals being struck, I can only
| speculate on the structure. The weird rules stem from the US
| copyright laws, and are therefore are impossible for a
| company like ours to get changed. We benefit from lower rates
| because of this and can make a service which will survive
| long term, so its a tradeoff we believe is worth it. I would
| stipulate that by going outside of those rules, they will
| have to pay a larger chunk of revenue to the labels, and
| it'll increase the ad load and cut the revenue passed to
| DJ's. Ultimately we decided that wasn't the approach we
| wanted to take, and the trade off was a good one, we'll find
| out with time which way they went.
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| The structure smells very much like the YouTube deal major
| labels made when they'd had enough of PROs not negotiating
| high enough license rates for them.
|
| Which, as an ex-PRO employee, makes me a bit sad to see.
| prox wrote:
| What is PRO ?
| input_sh wrote:
| One of these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_r
| ights_organisatio...
| bangaroo wrote:
| Switched over to you for events that I run years ago after
| dealing with the nightmare of twitch and couldn't be happier.
| Y'all have a good product. Much prefer working with you to the
| likes of Twitch, anyway.
| matclayton wrote:
| Thank you, massively appreciate it :) Any feedback just hit
| up support@mixcloud.com and they'll pass it all on to the
| right folk!
| omar_alt wrote:
| What is the maximum bit rate for mixcloud mixes? The audio
| quality of anything I upload sounds terribly degraded
| especially when I share it with someone who is not signed in
| matclayton wrote:
| Depends on if you are on free or Pro account as the uploader,
| if you are on Pro we up the bitrate substantially. Beyond
| this, it also depends on the device the user is listening on,
| we'll switch over to Opus when possible, which makes a big
| difference. If you want to max out the quality I would
| recommend you get Pro and ensure you listen on Chrome (or
| mobile apps). We'll do up to 320k on aac and 192k on opus. On
| Live we do something similar and last time I checked we did
| substantially higher rates than twitch on audio, but lower
| bitrates on the video.
| prox wrote:
| Not sure what Mixcloud is, just seeing this for the first time,
| are you a Twitch like streaming service?
| matclayton wrote:
| We're an online platform dedicated to DJs, licensed with free
| and paid tiers. We mainly do ondemand streaming but added
| live in 2020.
| prox wrote:
| Interesting! Never heard of Mixcloud before. Thank you.
| Personally I like the model where the you pay an X amount
| per month for your licensing versus the "we take whatever
| we feel like after the fact" that seems to be Twitch model.
| I stream relatively small music producers and why should I
| pay for licensing something from a big artist?
|
| I know this is a complicated subject but thats how it feels
| on my end.
| diggan wrote:
| > The Twitch DJ program lets you stream DJ sets using the vast
| majority of popular music.
|
| Sounds great that seemingly it coves a lot of the mainstream
| music, but what's the procedure if I happen to stream something
| that isn't a part of that? And how can I check what songs from my
| library are cleared to play/stream without having to actually
| play them and "find out" after the fact? The pages about this
| program seem to miss something vital practical information.
|
| > If you stream pre-release tracks, your channel may be subject
| to enforcement and penalties including termination of your stream
| and suspension of your channel.
|
| What a shame... Half the fun is finding absolutely new tracks and
| playing those. But I guess overall this program is a step in the
| right direction.
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| > A searchable catalog constantly updated with new releases
| means you'll have a full view of the millions of tracks that
| are covered to stream as a part of this offering
|
| TL;DR build sets out of the "twitch licensed works" catalog
|
| > I don't play major pop records or much major label music.
| Does this program apply to me?
|
| > We're always looking to grow the Twitch DJ catalog. If you're
| interested in chatting with us about this, please reach out to
| dj-catalog-requests@justin.tv.
|
| TL;DR Email them about the tracks you want added (and pray,
| probably).
|
| https://www.twitch.tv/dj-program/info
| diggan wrote:
| Thanks, missed that about the searchable catalog. Here's to
| hoping there will be some Rekordbox integration in the future
| so one doesn't have to manually search through 100s of tracks
| and instead can just get a checkbox in the UI.
|
| > TL;DR Email them about the tracks you want added (and pray,
| probably).
|
| I think that part is about labels/rights holders wanting to
| add tracks to the catalog from their side, not for DJs to
| request tracks to be added. But maybe I read that wrong,
| worth a try at least.
|
| Thanks :)
| dijksterhuis wrote:
| Yeah I read it as being on the creators side of things
| (because that's what the whole page is for). But you could
| be right. Worth tying anyway like you say.
| crtasm wrote:
| It's clearly saying DJs should email if they want to
| request tracks be added, though whether the "chat with us
| about this" will go anywhere, who knows.
| 1zael wrote:
| Former Twitch employee here. The labels will take a pretty high
| cut of revenue - I've heard something in the range of 30-50% -
| leaving the DJ with 25% (on the high end) after splitting it
| 50/50 with Twitch. Deduct tax and payment processing fees, this
| effectively would leave the DJ with ~20% of their current
| earnings. So the DJ would get 99 cents out of a $4.99 (US) sub.
|
| Additionally, Twitch isn't providing any features to help DJ
| creators make up for this loss in earnings, so this is
| effectively just a way for Twitch to avoid DMCA lawsuits while
| making it easier for DJs to stream.
|
| Twitch is softening the earnings (and PR) blow by absorbing the
| costs for one year, after which DJ creators are going to be in
| for a rude awakening.
| 63 wrote:
| fwiw the price of tier 1 twitch subs will go up to $5.99 in
| July according to a recent email sent to all subscribers, so I
| suppose the figure goes up to $1.18 or something
| prox wrote:
| As someone who gift subs, this is bad news for my gifting
| budget which will stay the same. I also do not see any
| benefits for the streamer with this price raise.
| kkukshtel wrote:
| 30 years on and surprising how nothing has really changed from
| the model outlined here: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-
| problem-with-music
| skrebbel wrote:
| Are you complaining that DJs can earn money by playing other
| people's music on a stream, or that they don't earn enough
| playing other people's music on a stream?
| trust_bt_verify wrote:
| I would complain that the DJ is making too small of a piece
| of the pie in this situation, given that their performance
| matters significantly. People can hear music anywhere
| nowadays. All these players should get paid but the record
| company taking that big of a chunk is overstating the
| impact of the music in these streams.
| tinco wrote:
| Not to diminish the value that a DJ brings for music, but I
| think if the labels took less than 70% then Twitch and the DJ
| is ripping them off.
|
| At least, when you consider anything in excess of a 30%
| platform fee, the amount Apple, Google, Steam etc. consider to
| be reasonable, price gouging.
|
| From the music creators perspective, a DJ is a platform
| showcasing their music, so it makes sense they'd pay the DJ
| some fee.
|
| If it's less of a service platform, and more like a retail
| store, than taking a larger amount like the 50-70% might be
| reasonable, but it feels like a bit of a stretch, as retail
| stores have very high overhead costs in comparison.
|
| I wonder what the real calculation was to get to that 30-50%,
| and if the DJ's really do consider it to be a lot.
| lelandfe wrote:
| > Not to diminish the value that a DJ brings
|
| Proceeds to diminish DJs's value. A mix isn't a playlist, nor
| a platform. Comparing a DJ's mix to a retail store hawking
| individual songs makes it seem like you don't have much
| appreciation for mixes.
| gizajob wrote:
| Being brutally commercial about it though, DJs on Twitch
| produce content wholly dependent on other people's content
| - pre-recorded music. It's only reasonable that if the DJs
| are getting paid, the content creators they depend on
| should get paid alongside. Nobody is going to pay to watch
| a DJ tweak a CDJ over and over without the tunes that
| someone else made.
| diggan wrote:
| Not sure how it's different from DJs who don't play on
| Twitch but in real venues. The tracks they're playing are
| (most often) purchased from other producers already,
| which is money that goes to the creators of the tracks (+
| other owners) already. Depending on the platform,
| creators get different shares of that price.
| sneak wrote:
| > _DJs often leverage pre-recorded music from other artists as a
| critical part of their creative expression_
|
| It's crazy to me that the misconception that DJs are playing
| original music is still around. Even DJs who also produce music
| play 90%+ records from other people.
| djyaz1200 wrote:
| Former pro DJ here. This is a big step in the right direction,
| but twitch probably won't be the beneficiary.
|
| Music is sold and consumed in single-song increments, and that's
| silly. That's what the industry wants, not all consumers. It's
| like if you could only eat one kind of food ingredient at a time.
| There are absolutely amazing artists taking these ingredients
| and, like a chef, chopping and mixing them together in wildly
| creative ways. However, accessing this entertainment is very
| challenging because there is no legitimate online business model
| for it. This leaves DJ's with a big incentive to only perform
| their best material live where they can monetize it. Once there
| is an online business model where they can get paid decently for
| this material, music consumption will change dramatically in this
| catagory.
|
| Imagine being able to tune into or stream different Vegas club
| mixes for your party at home, or at a bar, or at the gym? Imagine
| a netflix of all the best DJ sets of all time?
|
| Twitch is doing some of the "icebreaking" here, but music
| streaming is a huge business, and Spotify/apple, and all the
| others will follow, and there will likely be one or more services
| that specialize in this.
| solardev wrote:
| I apologize that this is going to sound really ignorant, but
| how exactly is DJ mix different from something like a Spotify
| playlist?
|
| I use those all the time for different activities, like a
| playlist for working out, another one for relaxing, different
| ones for different board games, etc.
|
| But I've never been to a club where a DJ plays (just not really
| my thing, too loud and not my kind of music). What do they do?
| Why might someone want to stream one instead of using a
| playlist?
| ludwigschubert wrote:
| A large part of the "value" a DJ brings is track selection;
| for sure. Playlists can do part of that, say to create a
| certain mood. But DJs get to adjust these on the fly as they
| observe the crowd reaction. Additionally, DJs rarely play
| full songs. Transitions can be drawn out over 16,32,64 bars,
| taking 1-2minutes. During that time DJs use tools like EQs or
| stem splitters to ensure the two tracks playing don't clash.
| There's lots more detail; just take my strongest
| recommendation to try DJing on hardware with a friend at some
| point; it's a richer and more rewarding experience than the
| "Skrillex pressing play on his MacBook" meme suggests.
|
| Edit: there's lots more to say about DJing of course, maybe
| someone else will chime in. One aspect to keep in mind is
| that DJing is important primarily in dance music. If you
| don't go dancing at clubs you may not be aware how different
| dance music is to traditional music meant for listening. A
| lot of the focus of dance music is generating tension
| ("build") and releasing it in a pleasant manner ("drop").
| Doing that at a pace that works for the energy level of the
| crowd at that moment, without unexpected shifts in energy
| levels, is not trivial. It requires taste and experience, and
| aims to create a more cohesive and unified experience for the
| dancers than a playlist could.
|
| Phew! Can you tell I recently got into DJing? ;-)
| solardev wrote:
| Ah, cool! Thanks for the explanation :)
|
| Although I've never really been the "clubbing" type, I do
| other types of dancing (swing, salsa, Scottish, country,
| etc.). They usually go off playlists, but I can see how
| having a live DJ who interactively adjusts the music to the
| crowd's energy level would be fun. I'd love to experience
| something like that!
|
| In terms of streaming, it would also be really cool to get
| a live DJ for D&D and other board game nights, who can
| dynamically respond to what's happening in the game world
| and blend the tracks (and sound effects?) appropriately.
| Does anyone do stuff like that? I'd pay for that service!
| ludwigschubert wrote:
| Yeah, in ballroom one takes a break between songs iirc.
| (It's been a decade or two.) The harder styles of dance
| and deeper kinds of house music seem designed to put you
| into a mild trance, thus the need to keep the rhythm
| consistent.
|
| For D&D, have you seen https://tabletopy.com/ ? I think I
| saw it here on HN a while ago.
| gizajob wrote:
| I think DJs were meant to monetize "live" - that was the whole
| point.
|
| I'm now imagining a Netflix of the best DJ sets of all time. It
| doesn't make any money.
|
| Musicians similarly have to "perform their best material live
| where they can monetize it". DJing really is part of a party,
| without the party, there's really next to nothing left,
| particularly now the technical aspect has been as good as
| automated thanks to CDJs.
|
| We're also more than 40 years now since this was a skilled
| task: https://youtu.be/uapn-mknXVU?si=3Ulv9NMoil7kMRR6 DJs
| weren't on big money then either.
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