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.

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

Wondering if this means regular streams can use music. There’s a lot of artists and game devs that would benefit from background music.

That's pretty cool. I'm looking forward to seeing how it pans out with records companies though..

> 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.