On June 17, Billy Lane, the founder of overseas DJ channel 916junglist, posted on social media: "Whether Twitch will change the rules of the live broadcast game will be known next month."
Recently, Twitch has taken the lead in establishing partnerships with Universal Music, Warner Music, and Sony Music It has reached a "first-of-its-kind" agreement with independent music copyright agent Merlin and other copyright parties, and has launched a Twitch DJ support plan to pave the way for the licensing of music in live broadcast scenarios.
In recent years, the rise of online live broadcast has become a disruptor in all walks of life. Data shows that the market revenue of my country's live broadcast industry will reach 209.5 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of 5.15% compared with 2022. Although the pie in the live broadcast industry is getting bigger and bigger, it is difficult for the music industry to directly benefit from it.
As for the topic of how to reasonably "divide the cake", although it has been discussed in China for the past two years, the current implementation situation is not optimistic. How does
twitch solve the live broadcast copyright problem?
According to the official website news, the Twitch DJ plan can be divided into four major sections, namely revenue sharing, support subsidies, music library upgrade and community promotion.
First of all, DJs who join the program need to sign relevant agreements, promising to pay a certain percentage of live broadcast revenue to the copyright owner in the future, but Twitch will share this fee with DJs according to official revenue terms.
In order to allow DJs to adapt to the new payment mechanism and not have to worry about a short-term drop in income due to platform rules, all DJs who join the plan will receive economic subsidies from Twitch in the first year to make up for the income difference caused by copyright sharing. Subsequent Gradually reduce each month.
Secondly, with the blessing of the copyright content of the three major records and merlin, DJs who choose to join the plan can use songs with confidence from a richer and constantly updated music library without having to worry about a series of overturns caused by copyright issues. ACCIDENT.
In addition, DJs who join the program will receive better traffic support. Twitch will release a new DJ channel for the first time, and users can browse the DJ exclusive community. Twitch stated that it will invest more funds to increase the exposure of DJs and strive to increase the overall viewing rate of channels in this category.
It should be noted that because the copyright usage involved in video on demand and editing is different from that of real-time live broadcast, it is temporarily unable to participate in this plan. At the same time, this plan is aimed at all DJs and anchors who play music in live broadcasts. It is not suitable for scenes such as live music playing (using piano, guitar, etc.), games, chat room live broadcasts, etc.
It is understood that the Twitch DJ plan is expected to be launched in July-August. In the long run, Twitch has reached cooperation with multiple copyright owners, laying the foundation for the development and cooperation of DJs, copyright owners and platforms, and will also promote the revenue guarantee of music copyright in live broadcast scenarios.
Why is twitch the first to take action?
In recent years, Twitch has been caught in a dilemma between DJs and copyright owners. Now this new plan also represents the opening of a new chapter in Twitch's cooperative relationship with the music industry.
Previously, due to the reduction in offline performances due to the epidemic, music content mainly based on live broadcasts of performances has gradually become one of the important sections of Twitch. Since the beginning of 2020, the number of DJs live streaming on the Twitch platform has more than quadrupled, with more than 15,000 DJs building and profiting from fan communities on the platform.
data shows that between March and April 2020, users’ viewing time on the platform increased by 50%. By May, users’ viewing time increased by 101% year-on-year. DJ live broadcasts usually use other artists’ music as play material, which leads to copyright issues.
According to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (dmca), the copyright owner can notify the platform of infringement at any time. After receiving the notice, the platform must promptly remove or disable access to the infringing content. In recent years, DJs on Twitch have received a large number of "removal notices". If they receive three copyright strikes in total, they will be regarded as repeat infringers and face the risk of permanent ban.
For DJs, the inability to play the latest hit songs in live broadcasts due to music library problems is already a constraint, and such frequent "deletion notices" undoubtedly make it worse.Some DJs even complained on social media: "You have to delete your own account to be safe."
The copyright owner is not stopping either. In May 2021, after receiving about 1,000 infringement claims, Twitch publicly expressed its disappointment with the behavior of music copyright owners, saying that they did not discuss reasonable solutions with Twitch, but demanded tough measures through prosecution and warnings. Remove content.
In the following two years, Twitch established and expanded cooperative relationships with nmpa, Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Merlin and other copyright companies. Until now, the Twitch DJ plan was launched, which finally solved the worries.
serves as a bridge between copyright owners and DJs. The Twitch DJ plan supports DJs sufficiently to attract more DJs and music lovers to join, while also ensuring that music copyright owners can benefit from it. While regulating the use of copyright, it is more conducive to the prosperity and development of the platform's content ecology.
Currently, many well-known DJs such as Steve Aoki, Grandmaster Flash, DJ Jazzy Jeff, etc. have chosen to join this plan.
As Michael Nash, executive vice president of Universal Music Group, said: "Twitch's move is crucial to the continued growth and long-term health of today's artist-centered music ecosystem."
What lessons does it have for the country?
is no different. Domestic copyright protection policies in the live broadcast environment are also constantly advancing.
In May 2024, at the expert demonstration meeting on the "Research Report on the Remuneration Mechanism of Sound Recordings "Right to Remuneration" in the Live Broadcast Environment", Cui Hengyong, a professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Beijing University of Graphic Arts, pointed out that currently dominates the online performance anchors in my country's live broadcast industry. The highest proportion of background music is used during live broadcasts, reaching 69.1%. In these live broadcast rooms that use background music, the anchors use background music for an average of 83.12% of the time, which is equivalent to playing music for 49.88 minutes per hour of live broadcast.
This suffices to say that music plays a key role in live content creation and interaction strategies. However, copyright issues such as whether the live broadcast room is legally authorized and how to pay copyright fees have become increasingly prominent.
In addition, the proportion of background music used in entertainment live broadcasts is 56.25%, while the proportion of background music used in e-commerce live broadcasts is lower, only 2.31%. This also means that music copyright plays different roles in different live broadcast application scenarios.
As early as July 25, 2022, the Audio Collection Association officially released the "Remuneration Standards for the Use of Sound Recordings in Internet Live Broadcasts (Draft)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Draft"), which clearly divides live broadcast rooms into three types of : live broadcast rooms that use karaoke and background music, live broadcast rooms that only use background music, and e-commerce live broadcast rooms that use music. The annual charging standards are 300 yuan, 100 yuan and 10,000 yuan respectively; the quarterly charging standards are 83 yuan, 26 yuan and 2777 yuan; the monthly charging standards are 29 yuan, 10 yuan and 980 yuan.
is similar to the foreign twitch DJ plan. According to this charging standard, the main body that needs to pay is the use of the anchor and the platform. In order to ensure the effective implementation of this standard, the cost will first be paid by the platform, and then the cost will be shared between the platform and the anchor.
From this point of view, domestic and foreign solutions have effectively reduced the complex process of one-by-one negotiations between music copyright holders and anchors, while avoiding problems such as difficulty in obtaining evidence, making copyright protection more efficient. The platform pre-packages payment fees, which not only reduces the risk of individual anchors facing rights protection due to non-payment of copyright fees, but also simplifies the entire copyright fee payment process.
Interestingly, Guo Kun, deputy director-general of the Audio Collection Association, once revealed that the Audio Collection Association had conducted three rate negotiations with representatives of the live broadcast platform in the first half of the year before the release of the 2022 "Draft". The platform side neither accepted the plan proposed by the rights holder. No other plan was proposed, and progress was stagnant for a time.
Compared with licensing cooperation with a single platform like Twitch, there are many domestic short video and live broadcast platforms, so it is naturally more difficult to implement a new payment mechanism.After all, the positions of all parties are not the same, the national understanding of copyright is uneven, and the copyright system is not perfect. To achieve a unified copyright payment standard and process, it will undoubtedly require a lot of coordination and communication, and will inevitably face the challenges faced by all parties. Conflicts of interest and high negotiation costs. Even if unified standards are reached, effective monitoring and enforcement of these standards remains a challenge.
Furthermore, as of the end of May 2024, the number of anchor accounts in my country’s live broadcast industry has exceeded 180 million (multi-platform non-deduplication data). Under the “snowball” revenue model of the live broadcast industry, a few top anchors with extremely high attention It accounts for the most traffic, and more than 90% of online anchors earn less than 5,000 yuan per month. On the other hand, the charging standards in the above-mentioned "Draft" do not take this special situation into consideration, and are obviously a bit one-size-fits-all for ordinary anchors.
On the other hand, the premise that it is easier for foreign countries to promote copyright payment is that most users express their recognition and support for Twitch’s measures to protect music copyright. They believe that this approach respects the labor of creators and can promote a healthier creative environment.
In China, when the "Draft" was trialled, many netizens complained. It can be seen from the comment area that most netizens have not established a basic awareness of copyright.
According to the "Research Project Report on the Remuneration Mechanism of Sound Recordings in the Live Broadcast Environment", although 53.4% of anchors currently know that using sound recordings in live broadcasts requires paying copyright fees to the rights holders, in terms of willingness to pay , only 42.42% of anchors are willing to pay copyright fees to rights holders. When musicians are involved in rights protection lawsuits, some netizens still confuse "copyright payment" with "porcelain".
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why experts are still meeting to discuss how to fully implement the "right to be remunerated" in a reasonable and easy way until the live broadcast room charging standards were trialled in 2022 until two years later.
Therefore, after taking into account the general environment and executability, and comparing the Twitch DJ plan with the domestic payment mechanism one by one, in addition to the copyright fee sharing mechanism that has been proposed, the Twitch DJ plan still has some things worth learning from. .
For example, can domestic platforms establish similar subsidy policies, especially to provide certain financial support for small and medium-sized anchors and new anchors to help them adapt to the transition period of copyright fees? They can also set up specific channels, homepage recommendations, etc. Provide traffic reward support to anchors who actively perform copyright payment. This not only attracts more anchors to join, but also promotes a virtuous cycle of the platform and industry ecology.
In short, although the environment is different, the successful experience of foreign Twitch DJ programs in copyright fee sharing, economic support, music library expansion, promotion support, etc. still has important reference significance for the domestic live broadcast environment, music copyright payment, and popularization of copyright awareness. .
Conclusion: A small step for
twitch, but a big step for profit sharing of live broadcast copyrights.
In the wave of the digital age, the protection of music copyright is not only a legal necessity, but also a sincere tribute to the hard work of artistic creators. As an important link between copyright holders and users, the platform has the responsibility to cooperate with the advancement of relevant laws and regulations as an important link in the music industry chain.
How to standardize music licensing in live broadcast scenarios and let musicians eat the more than 200 billion cake of the live broadcast industry, Twitch has set a pattern for domestic practitioners.
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