Twitch to Require DJs to Split Revenue with Music Labels

Live streaming platform, Twitch has announced that it will soon require DJs and other musicians who stream on the site to share a portion of their revenue with the music industry.

“We’re going to have a structure, where we are going to have to share money with the labels, it doesn’t come for free… we’re going to split whatever the cost is,” Twitch’s CEO Dan Clancy stated.

The new policy will work as follows: Twitch will track all copyrighted music played by DJs and other musicians during their streams. Twitch will then split the revenue generated from those streams with the relevant music labels and publishers, based on the licensing fees required to use that music.

This revenue-sharing model will apply only to DJ and musician streams, not to regular Twitch creators who may play some background music. Twitch emphasized that this change is specifically targeted at professional DJs and artists who rely on copyrighted music as the core of their content.

The move is seen as Twitch’s attempt to appease the music industry, which has long criticized the platform for allowing widespread use of copyrighted songs without proper licensing and compensation. By requiring DJs and musicians to share their earnings, Twitch hopes to establish a more sustainable model that provides royalties to rights holders. However, some creators have expressed concern that the new policy will eat into their already slim profit margins.

Twitch did not provide an exact timeline for when the revenue-sharing system will go into effect however Dan Clancy suggested the move will be in place very soon.