5 ms·

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 h

by 1zael 2y ago

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 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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.
  - input_sh 2y ago
    > I also do not see any benefits for the streamer with this price raise. I see this as a huge, industry-changing event. Right now, there's no big DJs streaming on Twitch. There's also no big streamers that became big because they're DJing. DJs on Twitch do exist, but we're talking dozens to hundreds of listeners, a small but very consistent community. I can only name one DJ that can consistently reach a couple of thousand, but she's more of a variety streamer, not exclusively a DJ. The really big story here is that DJing stops being this legal gray area on a major platform. If record label owners woke up one day with the intention to remove every DJ set from YouTube, or SoundCloud, or Twitch, there's nothing anyone could do about it. Up until this point, Mixcloud was the only platform available where a random nobody can perform or publish a DJ set without having to worry about it being taken down. The problem with Mixcloud is that most listeners don't want a separate app just for DJ sets, they'd rather listen to them on an app they already use, like Soundcloud or YouTube. So naturally, DJs navigate towards constantly living in this shady gray area, accepting the risk that the community they've gathered could simply vanish one day, despite there existing a 100% legal method that every DJ is aware of. Now, there's a mainstream platform that has, for the lack of a better word, "regulated" this whole thing. If Twitch does the bare minimum to promote this (as in sign a couple of relatively mainstream DJs to attract a new crowd), I can absolutely see this being very beneficial for the random "nobodies" already DJing on Twitch in front of dozens to hundreds of people.
    - prox 2y ago
      Thanks for your insight! I do hope this will lead to some interesting promotions because it is “out of the grey” I will also will be interested if the paycut is variable. I mean should I pay through the nose if don’t stream any big A-listed musicians?
kkukshtel 2y ago
30 years on and surprising how nothing has really changed from the model outlined here: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music
- skrebbel 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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.
    - miunau 2y ago
      DJing is bog easy and commoditised to the point where anyone can pick it up and sound believable by pushing a few buttons that literally do the mechanical work for you. This is coming from someone who's DJ'd for twenty years in all sorts of establishments. These Twitch DJs have donation buttons and merch that they get the majority of their income through anyway, if they even are monetised (many aren't). Personally I wouldn't mind if 100% of the revenue from my Twitch DJ streams went to the artists.
      - cush 2y ago
        It would be surprising if the artists made close to 25% after all the record company execs and middle-men have taken their cut. Speaking of bog easy
        miunau 2y ago
tinco 2y ago
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 2y ago
  > 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 2y ago
    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 2y ago
      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.
      - miunau 2y ago

by 1zael 2y ago

63 2y ago

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 2y ago
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.
- input_sh 2y ago
  > I also do not see any benefits for the streamer with this price raise. I see this as a huge, industry-changing event. Right now, there's no big DJs streaming on Twitch. There's also no big streamers that became big because they're DJing. DJs on Twitch do exist, but we're talking dozens to hundreds of listeners, a small but very consistent community. I can only name one DJ that can consistently reach a couple of thousand, but she's more of a variety streamer, not exclusively a DJ. The really big story here is that DJing stops being this legal gray area on a major platform. If record label owners woke up one day with the intention to remove every DJ set from YouTube, or SoundCloud, or Twitch, there's nothing anyone could do about it. Up until this point, Mixcloud was the only platform available where a random nobody can perform or publish a DJ set without having to worry about it being taken down. The problem with Mixcloud is that most listeners don't want a separate app just for DJ sets, they'd rather listen to them on an app they already use, like Soundcloud or YouTube. So naturally, DJs navigate towards constantly living in this shady gray area, accepting the risk that the community they've gathered could simply vanish one day, despite there existing a 100% legal method that every DJ is aware of. Now, there's a mainstream platform that has, for the lack of a better word, "regulated" this whole thing. If Twitch does the bare minimum to promote this (as in sign a couple of relatively mainstream DJs to attract a new crowd), I can absolutely see this being very beneficial for the random "nobodies" already DJing on Twitch in front of dozens to hundreds of people.
  - prox 2y ago
    Thanks for your insight! I do hope this will lead to some interesting promotions because it is “out of the grey” I will also will be interested if the paycut is variable. I mean should I pay through the nose if don’t stream any big A-listed musicians?

kkukshtel 2y ago

30 years on and surprising how nothing has really changed from the model outlined here: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-problem-with-music

skrebbel 2y ago
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 2y ago
  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.
  - miunau 2y ago
    DJing is bog easy and commoditised to the point where anyone can pick it up and sound believable by pushing a few buttons that literally do the mechanical work for you. This is coming from someone who's DJ'd for twenty years in all sorts of establishments. These Twitch DJs have donation buttons and merch that they get the majority of their income through anyway, if they even are monetised (many aren't). Personally I wouldn't mind if 100% of the revenue from my Twitch DJ streams went to the artists.
    - cush 2y ago
      It would be surprising if the artists made close to 25% after all the record company execs and middle-men have taken their cut. Speaking of bog easy
      - miunau 2y ago

tinco 2y ago

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 2y ago
> 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 2y ago
  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 2y ago
    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.
    - miunau 2y ago