Twitch Launches New Feature ‘Soundtrack — Rights Cleared Music For All Creators’
Twitch looks to recover some of its glory with the announcement of a new feature coming soon to the site. Streamers can sign up to join the Soundtrack beta and have access to approved music for their streams. Musicians can also reach out to have their music added to the catalog.
This new feature comes just a few short weeks after Facebook’s own announcement that allows their creators to play music from some of the biggest labels out there. Facebook boasts music from Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and more — which pretty much means all the big artists are available for streaming on Facebook’s gaming site. (Think Taylor Swift, Metallica, and Beyoncé). Twitch promises the labels show below, which notably include “Above & Beyond, mxmtoon, Porter Robinson, RAC, SwuM, , and many more.”
Notice a little bit of a difference between music offerings? Twitch seems to be focusing on the electronic genres and smaller artists, with Above and Beyond a huge name to lock in. Many upcoming artists use Soundcloud and CD Baby to list their music before they get signed to a label. (The labels that Facebook seems to have deals with).
Despite the(likely) more limited options on Twitch, they are offering something that Facebook isn’t. Twitch is providing their own system to integrate music into the stream, one where VODs will be music free. According to their blog post:
“Music from Soundtrack is separated into its own audio channel so you can play music on stream without worrying about your archives being muted or receiving strikes against your Twitch channel (or wherever else your content may go!).”
This is huge for many creators, who often post highlights from their Twitch content to other sites like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and yes — even Facebook. All of these platforms have taken increasingly aggressive stances against music usage and rights over the past year, with DMCAs threatening creators on every platform.
Twitch may not have the best catalog (yet), but their proposed integration is exactly what streamers have been looking for. After several bad PR incidents for Twitch in the past few months, clip DMCAs, racism issues in their heritage month emote modifiers, and the mid roll ad disaster, Twitch is looking for a win. As long as this program runs smoothly, this is a huge win for Twitch and for streamers looking to protect their brand. It just has to work.
