Artist Rights Alliance Challenges Bezos On Twitch Royalties

The Artist Rights Alliance, an artist-run, nonprofit fighting for songwriters and musicians in the modern music economy, released a letter sent today to Amazon Founder and CEO Jeff Bezos following up on his controversial recent testimony regarding Amazon's Twitch streaming service. Under questioning at this month's House Judiciary Committee hearing by Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-ND), Bezos claimed not to know if Twitch - which his company has owned since 2014 - allows users to stream unlicensed music.

ARA Board Member Tift Merritt called on Amazon to do better: "Jeff Bezos could not answer to Congress if Amazon's Twitch live streaming service permitted its users to post unlicensed music. The music artists create is not only sacred in spirit and deserving respect - it also merits fair pay no matter where and how it is used."

The letter is available here.

Twitch is a live streaming service that has grown from a narrow focus on gaming/esports into one of the most popular streaming platforms in the world. The pandemic has boosted the service to new heights - with 5 billion hours watched and listened in the second quarter of 2020, an 83% jump over 2019. The service is expected to pass 40 million U.S. users by 2021, has been building market share in Europe for years with over 10% of its viewers from Germany and France, and is rapidly expanding across the Asia-Pacific region.

While music is a core feature of many of Twitch's livestreams (including DJ style music sets, hosted music videos, and as the soundtrack to gaming and other livestreams), the company currently has no licenses in place. That leaves creators shortchanged and sets in motion a costly and inadequate notice and takedown process - instead of a fair and orderly licensing process that compensates artists and songwriters when their work is used to build the Twitch brand and drive revenues at the $15 billion company. And this problem is only likely to continue - one Twitch executive (recruited to the firm from Spotify) recently predicted "Music is where we see the largest growth" for the service.

The Artist Rights Alliance is an artist-run, non-profit organization fighting for songwriters and musicians in the modern music economy. It is led by a Board of Directors including GRAMMY winner Rosanne Cash, music manager Thomas Manzi, John McCrea of CAKE, critically acclaimed Americana singer/songwriter Tift Merritt, award-winning producer Ivan Barias, world guitar innovator Matthew Montfort, and Indie label executive and musician Maggie Vail. Longtime DC political strategist and former top House of Representatives staffer Ted Kalo is ARA's Executive Director.

ARA works to ensure artists are at the table when decisions are made on policies that affect their lives and livelihoods and empowers artists to advocate directly for themselves through classes, events, and presentations to demystify music, politics, and the spaces where they intersect.

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