New Twitch Terms of Service (multi-stream and ad changes)

[Faer-Anne]

Summary

 Twitch has updated their Terms of Service as of today (June 6th 2023) to include language that appears to prevent all multi-streaming (unless otherwise explicitly allowed), as well as preventing "baked-in" sponsorships from third parties (as of late June 8th 2023).  

 

Quotes

Quote

11. Simulcasting

When you are streaming live on the Twitch Services you may not simultaneously live stream or broadcast (“Simulcast”) on any other “Twitch-like Service,” meaning any web-based network, platform, or service that supports live streaming of user generated content, without advance written permission from Twitch. For clarity, you may Simulcast on mobile-first services that support live streaming. This Section does not apply to non-profit or government entities that are live streaming for non-commercial purposes.

12. Advertisements

Twitch has the exclusive right to monetize the Twitch Services, including without limitation, the exclusive right to sell, serve, and display advertisements on the Twitch Services. This means you may not, nor may you allow a third party to, insert or embed prerecorded advertising units into your live stream, including without limitation video advertisements (whether pre-, mid-, or post-roll); display or “banner” advertisements; and audio advertisements.

 

My thoughts

While the simulcasting restriction has been true for a while now if your a partner, this appears to now apply as a blanket ban, rather than only to higher tier accounts.  As for the advertisement limit, it seems to only include prerecorded content, but is worded loosely enough (by including the "And audio advertisements" as well as "display or 'banner'" parts) to potentially envelope any advertisement.

 

Sources

http://web.archive.org/web/20230606163104/https://www.twitch.tv/p/en/legal/terms-of-service/
https://web.archive.org/web/20230608233953/https://www.twitch.tv/p/en/legal/terms-of-service/

EDIT: Replacing the source with a web archive link.  Seems Twitch might be changing them again soon.
EDIT2: Added note about now only banning third-parties from providing the adds.

Edited June 9, 2023 by Faer-Anne
Adding note about the june 8th change

[BobVonBob]

36 minutes ago, Faer-Anne said:

As for the advertisement limit, it seems to only include prerecorded content, but is worded loosely enough (by including the "And audio advertisements" as well as "display or 'banner'" parts) to potentially envelope any advertisement.

36 minutes ago, Faer-Anne said:

including without limitation video advertisements (whether pre-, mid-, or post-roll); display or “banner” advertisements; and audio advertisements

That text pretty clearly includes all advertisement. Twitch wants nobody to be making money on Twitch without taking their cut. Creating a hostile environment for your creators wallets when competitors are rapidly poaching them because of these exact decisions is a bold strategy.

[grg994]

Well, this is the last nail in the coffin of Twitch as a platform for small-to-mid-sized creators. Twitch ads and monetization doesn't make enough money for anyone under ca. 3-5000 average views.

 

I hope Twitch competitors will continue rising let it be Kick or whatever else. Data center egress costs are steadily decreasing year-by-year and AV1 can reduce even 1080p bandwidth need by 20-30%. And Youtube should fix it's damn UI and discoverability for live streaming, it is ridiculous how bad it is.

 

I have a long standing dream at this point to write a "3rd party PC Windows+Linux+Mac+mobile app" for viewing all major video platforms in one, open-source place. Something like streamlink or yt-dlp but with an actual UI including chat, content discovery, etc. Same principle as on the streaming side where everyone can use OBS. Someone should really to that to help this fucked up platform monopoly situation ripping off all creators who don't make 10000+ views in a stream...

[FezBoy]

@LinusTech is this a RIP for WAN on twitch?

[TetraSky]

Welp, RIP the WAN Show on Twitch. This literally targets everything about LMG livestreams. Multistreams on all platforms AND baked in sponsorspots. ...

But man... Twitch are basically banning sponsor spots on their platform with that.

Quote

This means you may not [...] insert or embed prerecorded advertising units into your live stream, including without limitation video advertisements (whether pre-, mid-, or post-roll); display or “banner” advertisements; and audio advertisements

Surely their creators will complain in masses for that. Who would stay on Twitch if they can't even make extra money without passing through Twitch.

[Faer-Anne]

46 minutes ago, FezBoy said:

@LinusTech is this a RIP for WAN on twitch?

 

11 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Welp, RIP the WAN Show on Twitch. This literally targets everything about LMG livestreams. Multistreams on all platforms AND baked in sponsorspots. ...

But man... Twitch are basically banning sponsor spots on their platform with that.

Surely their creators will complain in masses for that. Who would stay on Twitch if they can't even make extra money without passing through Twitch.

It's been a bit since Twitch first put this out limiting Partners, but I'm like... %40 certain LTT has already mentioned they were granted or grandfathered special terms that exclude them from this, though only they know if this directly contradicts that special permission. 

2 hours ago, Faer-Anne said:

without advance written permission from Twitch

Twitch does allow carve-outs, but only through their special permission.  Again, not sure what LTT's agreements/deals/privilages are, since I don't work there, so I'm 100% going off my bad memory.

[Faer-Anne]

2 hours ago, BobVonBob said:

That text pretty clearly includes all advertisement. Twitch wants nobody to be making money on Twitch without taking their cut. Creating a hostile environment for your creators wallets when competitors are rapidly poaching them because of these exact decisions is a bold strategy.

Mostly just avoiding being finalist about these things.  I doubt it will be used for the good of streamers, but I try not to tell others what some company I barely interact with is going to do.

[BobVonBob]

Aaaaaand they're walking it back. I give 50/50 odds they did this on purpose to make whatever they say next seem reasonable by comparison.
 

 

[Faer-Anne]

They're only walking back direct sponsors... maybe.  They explicitly mention intending only to target third-party advertisement networks in the tweet, but as of right now there is no change to the ToS.  They mention nothing about Simulcasting.

[porina]

Thanks for this I now know Kick exists and grabbed my username, even if that site looks much like a Twitch copy. Let's see where the dust settles.

[grg994]

52 minutes ago, BobVonBob said:

50/50 odds they did this on purpose

100% they did this on purpose. Twitch is a serious company. No such change happens without a direct approval from the CEO

[Faer-Anne]

Not sure what they did or didn't do on purpose, but I can say that after visiting the twitch site, I can confirm the change was not well mentioned.  I have not seen a banner or notice about it *at all* (though some have mentioned a single "cookie style" banner at the bottom that only showed up once, let me know if they've mentioned it more obviously anywhere.)  I only found out because I was in an argument with someone else about if the rule applied only to Partners, Affiliates and Partners, or everyone.  I went to the ToS site to show it wasn't on the normal ToS (since yesterday it wasn't), and was unpleasantly surprised to find it had changed today. Had I not gone and done that check myself, I likely wouldn't have known about it till it started picking up in the online news cycles.

[grg994]

https://twitter.com/Twitch/status/1666183145526538240

 

They also do not say anything about taking back the new "multi-stream" rule which is a new restriction on beginner streamers who are not Twitch affiliate/partner yet!!

[Quackers101]

its good to have better ad standards, when it comes to ads not marketed as ads.
But this and the, 50% take from twitch? ouch. If they walk back on it, but do hope for better structure around ads which would be hard, I guess.

[Taf the Ghost]

2 hours ago, grg994 said:

https://twitter.com/Twitch/status/1666183145526538240

 

They also do not say anything about taking back the new "multi-stream" rule which is a new restriction on beginner streamers who are not Twitch affiliate/partner yet!!

i.e. they "went too far", will take the PR hit and walk back a lot of the stuff they changed but keep important ones to their next planning stages.  Sadly, this is the pretty standard play with this stuff, now.

[Drazil100]

8 hours ago, FezBoy said:

@LinusTech is this a RIP for WAN on twitch?

Their partner contract has a special carve-out to allow them to simulcast. I don’t know if these changes somehow get around their partner contract but I assume if they try to tell him he can no longer simulcast Linus would just send it and get his channel banned for the memes. He makes WAY more money streaming to Floatplane or even YouTube than he ever sees from Twitch. 

[williamcll]

This is the part where LTT should promote more floatplane

[Doobeedoo]

Definitely need a great competitor and mass exodus to happen. So many crap over the years it's pathetic. So corporate sadly also that big events would continue being there even if people started to leave. Again need a new proper go to alternative.

[suicidalfranco]

welp, time to go back to chaturbate

[Kisai]

11 hours ago, porina said:

Thanks for this I now know Kick exists and grabbed my username, even if that site looks much like a Twitch copy. Let's see where the dust settles.

It's whitelabel twitch, it even uses twitch's servers. https://aws.amazon.com/ivs/

 

Like I don't want to be a wet blanket, but that is one service you probably DO NOT want to use if your grievance is with twitch, because ultimately everything that applies to twitch applies to Kick except content guidelines other than copyright/illegal content.

 

it would cost kick $2.00USD per hour to stream + 0.12 per CCV. Per hour. So if you're moistcr1tikal (39th most popular twitch streamer) with 10,000 CCV, it would cost him $1202/hr to stream to his audience. He streams 143 hrs per month. So 1202*143= $171,886USD

 

That is death-knell levels of costs. I do not see Kick (or anyone else) going "hey, would you like to come over to our site, here's a lucrative 70/30 split on a 3.50CPM (which is what twitch offers) of 401,067 , while we break even with our 30% of 171886. When the revenue from the 3.50CPM ads would be $45,045

 

The ad revenue twitch offers, even under optimal conditions does not "break even" with it's IVS service "cost". The CPM rate would have to be $35. To break even. That is something that maybe having 10 "big streamers" you subsidize on the platform, to pull people to your platform, but no... the math doesn't work. Bits and subs are how you keep the streamers on the platform, and when you don't have that, you don't have any reason to use the platform. Twitch gates those features behind having 3CCV, Youtube gates it behind 4000hrs of watch time+1000 followers.

 

What I expect is that kick will just fold once it's forced to have staff to moderate it.

 

Youtube on the other hand, the barrier to entry is too steep to even be in the partner programs if you are aren't bringing an audience from another platform. So these third party services, sponsorships, and so forth might be their only option.

 

Like to put things in perspective. Many people on twitch are only affiliates for the chat interaction features (eg emoji's/stickers.) Those features do not exist on youtube in any form. If those features were available without being at least affiliate on twitch, you can be sure many people wouldn't bother being affiliate either. They just want to use their own emoji's in other streamer's chats.

 

Bigger, business-oriented people have been telling streamers to get off twitch and use youtube for the last 3 years because twitch's payouts are the worst, but they also deem chat interaction as worthless. 

 

You know how you know the streamer deems chat interaction as worthless? When they only read the superchats. If you're big enough you can do this because the chat moves too fast. But if you're a small creator with less than 200CCV, you can not afford to not interact with the chat and only wait for superchats.

 

It's also been pointed out that like 30-40% of any particular streamer's followers are also affiliate status, and maybe 1% might be other partners. Keep in mind the CCV hurdle on twitch for partner is 75. Not like youtube (which amounts to about 64CCV if you do 4x4 hour streams.) Youtube has no "affiliate" tier. So you can't make any revenue from the platform without already being popular on it.

 

 

By the way, Twitch payouts, ARE the worst.

You are forced to run 3 minutes of ads to get 55%, otherwise it's 30%. Yes, that means Twitch already keeps 70% of the revenue AND eats another 10% of it in paying it out if you just make only $50.

https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/affiliate-onboarding-guide?language=en_US#fees

 

Like I don't know why Twitch hates their streamers this much.

[Thaldor]

14 hours ago, BobVonBob said:

Aaaaaand they're walking it back. I give 50/50 odds they did this on purpose to make whatever they say next seem reasonable by comparison.
[Twatter]

Sounds a lot like old AH joke:

Quote

AH walks into a bar and orders a drink and the following dialog happens:
Bartender: "What are you planning to do this time?"
AH: "I'm planning to murder 3 million people and 3 polar bears."
Bartender: "Why the 3 polar bears?"
AH: "Exactly, that is why. No one asks about 3 million people if you murder 3 polar bears."

 

Banning multistreaming and ads seems so flashy I wouldn't be surprised if there were more subtle changes elsewhere or they comeback with something "more sensible" which is basicly the same but worded so it sounds nicer and they stuff it to the userbase like thanks giving turkey by launching a marketing campaign where few big streamers both in Thotch and YT are paid to make videos about how original state is bad for everyone and how these changes will make lives of everyone better.

[Albal_156]

Yeah Twitch put out a clarification on this. It seems not to be as clear cut as the policy announcement but this is Twitch who knows what they are doing.

 

[grg994]

I also just don't get it how viewers who decide to support streamers with more than the cost of a Twitch sub / Youtube membership a month - why they use Twitch bits / gift subs instead of direct donations (Stream Elements / Stream Labs). You just decided to give $50-100 to someone - why the hell one does it in a way where Twitch takes 50% of the money - when one could donate it in a way where 95% would go the streamer?!

 

And this is even after the Twitch leak last year clearly showed what happens to the "donated" money...

[Arika]

 

 

[Albal_156]

Twitch bits work because its in platform. Donations are outside platform so people have to do more work to send money that aren't bits. I tend to buy a load and then use that over several years because I don't have the income I used to have to jst keep sending them. One bit of Twitch marketing that has worked on us all.