Twitch President Dan Clancy Talks Exclusivity on Patch Notes
In case you didn’t know, Patch Notes is our weekly broadcast - on /Twitch - about all the latest Twitch trends, developments, and announcements with the people who know ‘em best. Last week, that best-knower happened to be Twitch President Dan Clancy, who appeared to speak on the recent exclusivity update Here’s what he had to say:
TWITCH: On Tuesday of this week, Twitch sent global communication to most Partners about an update we’re making to their Partner agreements that allows them to create live content on other platforms. This is a big change! To learn more, we have a first-time guest on this episode of Patch Notes. Chat, please help me welcome the President of Twitch, Dan Clancy, to the show! Can you give us a quick intro here? Who are you? What do you do at Twitch?
DAN: At Twitch, I’m responsible for the day-to-day operations and am lucky enough to work with every team, from the Creator org, to Marketing, to Trust & Safety, to Monetization, to Product and Engineering. I can tell you firsthand that we all work incredibly hard to find ways to support streamers to do what they love with the communities that they love. We don’t always get it right, but we care deeply; every team does. And on a more personal level, I’m a dad; I love the outdoors.
DAN: Partners who are on standard agreements can now create live content off of Twitch. While we still believe it is best to use Twitch for building and engaging with your community, we recognize that some of you would like more flexibility to explore how to use different, off-platform features to further build your community.
TWITCH: This is awesome. Why make the change now?
DAN: When we first developed the Partner Program, we felt it was important for streamers to focus solely on Twitch for live streaming to build their communities. We still believe that Twitch is the best place for creators to build and engage with their community. We also recognize that the digital landscape has changed since we first introduced the Partner Program and that many of you engage with your community in many different places. So, we are updating our policy. We will no longer be enforcing this portion of your agreement and will be updating agreements early next year.
As Dan mentioned, we’re working hard to find the best ways to support streamers and this is just one piece of that work. To further clarify what this means for all streamers, here are a couple answers to two of the most common questions we’ve received since the episode aired.
Q: How does the Exclusivity launch impact Affiliates?
A: Affiliates are now welcome to explore these other short-form, mobile platforms like TikTok and Instagram Live for simulcasting.
Q: Is there still a 24-hr content exclusivity for recorded content? How does that impact clip sharing?
A: This does not change the length of time for putting up VOD content, but we’ll continue to offer updates to our contract that benefit streamers.
For the full Patch Notes Episode - hit the link here to see all the latest in product updates. Note - the stream is currently supported in English only.
For more information on the update to Partner Exclusivity, please see our FAQs here.