If you haven't heard what's happened in the last week, Twitch sent out a very concerning email to a bunch of their streamers. This is apparently due to larger streamers playing music through spotify while in the "just chatting" category, but not entirely. The RIAA regularly sends DMCA takedown notices. From what I've found online, it's usually around 600 per month. From what I've heard, it sounds like Twitch received over 1800 DMCA notices in September.
It's concerning, especially for someone like myself who likes to stream DDR every now and again. I've run into issues during Dance Dance Extra Life, with songs getting me in trouble with Twitch because of music copyright. The irony is that, despite my attempts to get proper licensing, There's no real easy way to do this. They want to know how many times their songs are played, which songs, and how long they were played. The problem is, I don't really have an easy way of tracking that, nor do I have a good way to report every live stream. It's not a pre-recorded thing. I'm not a radio station, per se, nor am I just playing the audio. There's a visual element, adding something transformative to the content.
Streamers are kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place. I would wager most, if not all, streamers would gladly pay for licensing if there were an easy way to pay. I would gladly support artists. I'm a singer. I totally understand the struggle. It's just...without an easy to understand way to pay, people risk a whole lot of harm to their lives.
What really needs to happen is a simplified payment portal. Here's what I have in mind:
Currently, a song played on Spotify earns approximately $0.006 to $0.0084 per play. This goes to the label, which is then split up between all rights holders. Most songs are between 3 and 5 minutes long, meaning you can fit anywhere between 12 and 20 songs in one hour. Say, for the sake of an example, we're looking at 15 songs an hour. That nice sweet spot in the middle. At $0.006 per play, that comes out to roughly $0.009 per hour. If I could pay $15 a month (166 hours at that $0.09/hr), have that amount get split up between all the major labels to share amongst all their members, you bet your ass there would be thousands of streamers lining up to take part. If that monthly payment means I won't get sued into oblivion, hell, you could charge $20 a month and I'd still gladly take part! Perhaps a tiered solution, one where people with more regular viewers pay a higher rate. Something that doesn't cause the bigger streamers to take advantage of the system.
The problem with this? The labels won't go for this. They want streamers to pay per listen, or in the case of twitch, per viewer tuned into your stream. And they want that per play money, at $0.006, multiplied by the number of viewers. They're not interested in economies of scale. They don't care if they kill a significant portion of Twitch's community of streamers. They don't care that they could have monthly guaranteed income for all of their members, something that could give their smaller artists a leg up when they need it most.
If someone wants to take this idea and run with it, go for it. All I ask is that you at least give me a nod when you take off, and hire me to work with you on it.