These subscriptions allow viewers to support broadcasters and use special emotes (chat icons like emojis) that are accessible only to subscribers of a particular broadcaster’s channel.
Anyone can become a Twitch broadcaster for free and earn money directly from viewers.
Watching videos and channels on Twitch is free and publicly accessible to anyone with an Internet connection. The broadcasts start out as live streams and are saved on the channel for re-broadcasts and on-demand watching. Twitch, a subsidiary of Amazon, is a live-streaming video platform that has “ over two million broadcasters and 15 million daily active users.” Anyone can become a Twitch “broadcaster,” meaning users set up their own channels and live-stream various content, which includes, but is not limited to, video-game play, card games, pranks, craft tutorials and more. Enter Twitch, the website exploiting creators and owners without paying for a single cent of music usage. Music creators (songwriters and performing artists) and rights’ owners (music publishers and record labels) are not collecting a new and substantial source of income – and most of them are not aware they are not collecting it. This article was originally published on