Like so many others, DJs everywhere have suddenly been left with no work and no income because of restrictions brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. With some health officials and politicians now predicting that large public gatherings may not return until the fall of 2021—or at least until there’s both herd immunity and a vaccine—it’s unlikely that DJs will be getting back into the booth anytime soon.
But these dire circumstances haven’t stopped DJs from sharing music with the world. Except now, they’re just doing it online. Over the past month, livestreamed sets have become so ubiquitous that leading electronic music platform Resident Advisor recently added a new hub called Streamland to its event listings. Online dance music destination Boiler Room, which has been livestreaming crowded DJ sets for 10 years, launched a new series called Streaming From Isolation, in which artists like the Black Madonna and Four Tet deliver sets from their homes or private spaces. In Berlin, the world’s clubbing capital, an initiative called United We Stream, run by the city’s nightlife advocacy organization, is broadcasting nightly sets from local clubs. Elsewhere, venues themselves have also gotten into the act; as soon as NYC began to shut down, Queens nightspot Nowadays went online with virtual sets.
Many DJs have also begun broadcasting directly to the public via platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitch. On March 28, DJ-producers Octo Octa and Eris Drew went live with a self-proclaimed “Forest Throwdown” from their backyard in rural New Hampshire. “We needed to do something to make us feel grounded,” says Drew. Despite some issues with sound quality and YouTube’s licensing mechanism—the stream was temporarily blocked to new viewers when Drew kicked off her set with Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock’s “It Takes Two”—the livestream has racked up nearly 20,000 views. They didn’t earn any money or even consider asking viewers for donations, though. “We know a lot of people are hurting right now,” says Drew. “In a few months, if we need help, we’ll ask for it, but for now, we want people who need help more than us to get it.”
Their attitude is one that’s been echoed throughout the dance music industry, as many of the highest-profile livestreams have seen DJs donating their time, often in service of a charitable organization or a nightlife institution that’s in need. Late last month, online dance music store Beatport held a 34-hour streaming marathon called ReConnect, which featured artists like TOKiMONSTA, A-Trak, and Carl Cox, and raised more than $180,000 for COVID-19 relief funds. (A second ReConnect event took place last weekend, raising an additional $80,000.) United We Stream has raised more than 400,000 euros to aid ailing clubs while piling up 6 million views, and the Streaming From Isolation series, which currently has 13 million views, has brought in more than $40,000 for the Global Foodbanking Network.
Nowadays, which has balanced its virtual programming between artists from the NYC scene and international acts, has mainly directed viewers to support the club’s Patreon account, which has more than 1,000 subscribers. Earlier this week, the club’s co-founder Eamon Harkin stated that monthly Patreon contributions now cover approximately 40 percent of what it will cost Nowadays to survive during the pandemic. The venue plans to continue to livestream as long as the doors are closed, and while the artists themselves are not paid, the broadcasts always include artists’ personal Venmo or Paypal information, along with a separate Venmo to assist Nowadays staff, who have all been laid off. Kristin Malossi, aka DJ Voices, the club’s booker and one of its resident DJs, says she’s more focused on keeping Nowadays afloat than getting paid for her livestreams. “I have no income from my day job and no income as a DJ. So yes, I need compensation of some sort, but for me that hasn’t been the point. It’s just been a really good way to stay busy and stay connected.”
A desire for community and connection are certainly valid motivations for livestreaming, but the fact remains that few of these events are paying artists. That may change, especially once brands and their marketing teams shift their focus from real-world events to online ones. For now, though, paying gigs seem to be an exception rather than the rule.
Seeing the gravity of the situation, some artists are choosing to build their own platforms, in hopes that they might blossom into a reliable revenue stream. UK veteran Plastician is broadcasting live on the Amazon-owned platform Twitch three nights a week, but he’s not DJing much. Over the past few weeks, he’s mostly been hosting music quizzes, diving deep into dubstep, UK garage, and other genres for a rapidly growing audience. Tapping into his hosting skills—he first came up through the pirate radio world—Plastician sees Twitch as an opportunity to do something different from other DJ livestreamers. “I want to engage a bit more with my viewers,” he explains, “and people who use Twitch are used to being in the chat.” On average, his broadcasts draw around 250 people, and in less than a month, he’s gained more than 1,000 followers. Impressed with his metrics, Twitch recently awarded him the platform’s coveted partner status, which has opened up a new suite of monetization and channel optimization options.
The monetization aspect is particularly important, as Twitch already has an established tipping culture. Although it’s primarily a gaming platform, musicians have increasingly started testing it out, hoping that viewers will pay to subscribe to their channel or tip them directly. Artist and tech researcher Mat Dryhurst has referred to this practice as “e-busking,” as it represents a new paradigm in which performers will have to earn a living by virtually singing for their supper, over and over again. Plastician says that although his Twitch broadcasts have started to bring in a bit of revenue, it’s currently “nothing to write home about.” Yet he’s committed to the platform, and plans to keep broadcasting, even if things return to normal sooner than expected. “I’m not sure whether or not this will become a legit revenue stream or not,” he admits.
UK artist Plastician offers a guide for DJs looking to get into livestreaming on his Twitch channel.
This sort of attitude is rather common among DJs. They may not be making much money from livestreams, but when the entire industry is on pause, they don’t see the harm in simply playing some tunes online. “I’m a DJ because I love music,” says Nowadays’ Malossi. “Right now, in this beautiful way, I’ve been reconnecting with my music and my records.” This mindset ignores one major problem, though: When DJs play their records on various livestream platforms, the people who made those records aren’t necessarily being compensated properly, if at all. As music technology journalist Cherie Hu recently reported, the question of rights and licensing in regard to livestreams is a legal minefield. In theory, any DJ who’s doing a livestream should be licensing each and every track they play ahead of time, a process that could take weeks, even for music industry professionals. Given most DJs’ lack of expertise (and interest) in the finer points of copyright law, it’s no surprise that their compliance is practically nonexistent.
It’s also livestreaming platforms’ responsibility to monitor the content being broadcast. This monitoring varies wildly from one platform to the next, but it also explains why livestreams on Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram—who have all negotiated licensing deals with major labels and performance rights organizations around the globe—will sometimes be taken down suddenly in the middle of a set. (When livestreams on these platforms are archived, they will also mute any tracks for which they don’t have the appropriate license.) In theory, these streaming platforms are paying some form of royalty for each track that gets played, but that’s only for the tracks their music recognition software picks up. Twitch, which reportedly has yet to negotiate the same kinds of major licensing deals, is an even bigger grey area.
Plastician recognizes that DJs earning money while playing other people’s records on Twitch could potentially be problematic, but as a producer and label owner himself, he’s not overly concerned about it. “Coming from pirate radio, I always saw a DJ playing my music on the radio as great promotion,” he says. “Now, if [vlogger] PewDiePie, who has more than 100 million followers on YouTube, played my music in his intro without crediting me or asking my permission, I’d be like, ‘Bro, what’s going on?’ They should both be seen the same way, but it feels different when a DJ plays it.”
Barring a major revamp of licensing requirements, along with significant improvements in both music recognition software and song reporting to relevant rights organizations, it’s hard to imagine widespread improvement in terms of livestream-related royalty payments. DJs themselves have little incentive to entangle themselves in legal minutiae, and the artists whose records are being played aren’t likely to kick up a fuss over payments that might not add up to much anyway. Still, when some DJ livestream events are bringing in tens of thousands of dollars, even for a good cause, it does raise questions about the ethics of capitalizing on artists’ work without their permission.
Streaming platform Mixcloud may be able to provide an artist-friendly solution. The site is already a go-to hub for DJs looking to share their sets online, and they’ve just rolled out Mixcloud Live, which will enable users to livestream both video and audio. Although it’s still in beta, the platform is being touted as a way that DJs can legally livestream their sets thanks to Mixcloud’s existing agreements with performance rights organizations. Mixcloud Live could be a boon for artists being played too, especially since the company also takes song reporting seriously, which leads to more accurate royalty payments.
Beatport, to their credit, have also made an effort to address the reporting and royalty situation. During their ReConnect event, they employed software programs that identified the tracks being played and subsequently displayed those tracks, along with a sales link to purchase them via Beatport. In that same spirit, they also teamed up with music identification firm DJ Monitor to properly identify and report all of the tracks that had been played to the relevant performance rights organizations. During the first ReConnect event, which drew 8.5 million viewers, 79 percent of all of the tracks played were identified. In theory, this should have generated thousands of dollars in royalties, but due to the lack of proper licensing infrastructure around livestreaming, the collective payments from the broadcast may only add up to mere pennies.
New platforms and an increased focus on accurate reporting are steps in the right direction, but the immediate economic outlook for livestreaming DJs and the artists whose music they play isn’t promising. People are tuning in—and donating money—but that hasn’t yet translated into anything resembling a reliable source of income for artists. “But for now,” says Plastician, “it’s the closest thing to a new revenue stream I’m going to have.”
