Monstercat "fast-track" Twitch affiliation comes under fire

Over the past few weeks, the Twitch streamer community has suffered from poor decisions on the part of the Amazon-owned company, mainly due to music copyright issues and thousands of DMCA-affected accounts.

This has led to receiving criticism and responses from media personalities such as CouRage, Lirik, Scump, among many others, who have had to delete hundreds of hours of content, due to the latent danger of receiving notifications related to copyright, losing the Partner status or even the access to their accounts.

I might get DMCA banned from Twitch...

— Jack “CouRage” Dunlop (@CouRageJD) October 20, 2020

Twitch has been aware of this, while also offering some sort of “solution” when they introduced Soundtrack, a library of music that is licensed for use in streams and that doesn’t record to Clips or VODs, so streamers can share the music-free version on other platforms, while also streaming without the danger of a DMCA takedown notice.

(Picture: Twitch)

Soundtrack's announcement has been met with a mixed response, with cries of "too late" for many who have been forced to delete all their recorded content on the platform

Now, just days after GlitchCon, a massive online event held by Twitch to replace the cancelled TwitchCon 2020, Monstercat has released the news of a new partnership with them.

In which, through their Monstercat Gold monthly subscription service, they will allow access to thousands of songs from the music label's repertoire, for $5 a month.

Monstercat and @Twitch are teaming up to bring fast-track Affiliate Status for #MonstercatGold subscribers! Gold provides 1000s of songs to use in your livestreams, and as an Affiliate, Twitch unlocks monetization tools for your channel!

🏅 https://t.co/BRUVtkNjgN pic.twitter.com/4Gaw3ExHmj

— Monstercat (@Monstercat) November 17, 2020

However, within the statement, a mention is made to the of speeding up the acceptance process in the Affiliate Program, a program dedicated to emerging streamers, which has also brought mixed reactions from many users.

Wow. Terrible idea. Why bother working hard to earn something when you can just pay for it instead.

— BowTieDaniels (@BowTieDaniels) November 17, 2020

While this isn’t an issue imo, Affiliates themselves are overwhelmingly hurt for the loss in -perceived- value on what they’ve accomplished so far.

And that is @Twitch’s own fault for marketing Affiliate as a milestone. Twitch founded the program as an achievement you EARN. pic.twitter.com/o9Wothex5w

— Shannon (@ShannonZKiller) November 17, 2020

no offense to twitch affiliates, but the complaints about this are ridiculous. the requirements for affiliate are 50 followers 3 concurrent viewers and 8 hours streamed...not to mention buying affiliate status doesn't get you viewers.

— chocoTaco (@chocoTaco) November 17, 2020

These types of reactions and comments were to be expected, since streamers had always seen obtaining Affiliate status as an achievement, given the requirements that must be met to be so.

Now, and according to the Monstercat Gold support site, it’s only necessary to retain the membership for 30 days to be eligible for the program, which devalues the very thing the membership offers.

One of the main benefits of the subscription “fast-tracks” Affiliate status (Picture: Monstercat)

Twitch hasn’t commented yet on the changes regarding the Affiliate Program, however, this announcement has been perceived as a smokescreen against the problems with the record labels, while others have accused Twitch of giving false hope to streamers who don’t get many viewers.