A Response
487My original video - • DST Artists have been Ripped Off
In addition I want to address a few specific counterarguments here that I’ve seen pop up repeatedly in defense of this situation. I do encourage you to watch my first video, it’s going to spell out much more clearly my attitude on this situation. This will be my last word on the subject, I stand by what I said three years ago and the video stays up.
“The artists were never expecting payment”
James and I both acknowledged this three years ago, the fact that most artists didn’t expect to be paid and would not mind not being paid. I appreciate when artists are excited to help contribute to someone they admire. That doesn’t make it right for someone with influence to ask them to contribute for free. It’s manipulative, especially for someone who is making enough from their content to be able to easily afford paying for submissions.
“Beard did not promise exposure to artists.”
I mentioned exposure in my video in reference to similar art competitions held by companies trying to outsource their rebranding, “in exchange for a cash prize or sometimes just the promise of exposure.” But listen to his own words right here from the announcement.
“Whatever you guys want to do, whatever you guys want to create, give it to me, show it to me. Because then I’ll show it to everybody else, I’ll direct them to all of your channels, and we can help each other grow.”
Give it all to me, I’ll show it to everybody else, I’ll direct them to your channels and we can help each other grow. This was his pledge, and to me it’s a fairly clear-cut offer of exposure in return for work.
“Beard didn’t profit directly from the artwork.”
It’s not unusual for me to hear this argument, that the channel banner didn’t directly influence his bottom line. It’s a claim you can make with practically any branding that is not the product itself, but any big content creator knows that growing a channel is almost impossible without good branding. Even Beard acknowledges this when he says that artists can help his channel grow. What happens when your channel grows? You profit.
Like, nobody at that fundraiser I played is going to be so inspired solely by the music to make a larger donation. But it was part of a presentation that enriched the event and benefited everyone. Same with music at a bar or restaurant. Same with ambience or artwork, it’s all part of a presentation that affects the success of a business.
But there is one other aspect of this argument that nobody has addressed: the Twitch emotes. People pay to use emotes on Twitch. When they pay to subscribe they unlock emotes that are not otherwise available. Some viewers will subscribe to a streamer for the sole purpose of using their emotes on Twitch. So it is entirely untrue to claim that streamers do not profit from offering good emotes.