After artists and musicians were forced to flock to social media to livestream their sets for listeners following the COVID-19 outbreak, DJ live-streaming is about to be put to a halt as of October 1st. With Facebook introducing a new set of rules, they’ve made it clear that the platform is for sharing with family and friends, and not for music.
The new guidelines go into detail about sharing music on the site, stating "You may not use videos on our products to create a music listening experience… If you use videos on our Products to create a music listening experience for yourself or for others, your videos will be blocked and your page, profile or group may be deleted. This includes Live.”
With this new hurdle in effect, live streamers will have to resort to other options, one of which being Mixcloud Live which has been specifically designed for DJs, is 100% legal, and operates on monthly subscriptions. Another option is YouTube which allows rights owners to monetise copyrighted content, but the video platform is still prone to stopping or blocking DJ livestreams. Frustratingly it seems though that big name DJs, well known record labels and large scale music industry companies will be free to stream through back alley agreements.
Alas, let's look at the bright side, maybe we didn't need to feel the awkward shame of being one of 5 viewers on your mates living room psy-trance set.
