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Currently, Microsoft has started a real battle of the streaming giants with its streaming platform Mixer, as the software giant first acquired Ninja from Twitch and most recently Shroud. Ninja now generates 42 million streaming hours and Shroud 39 million hours.
In total, Mixer now has more than 200 million streaming hours per month.
So Mixer is definitely becoming an alternative to Twitch, and it’s expected that Microsoft will invest a lot more money to help Mixer grow. So some streamers should slowly consider whether they want to be active on mixers.
But what are the legal rules of the game? Basically, no different from Twitch, because even though some collecting societies such as GEMA consider the providers of the platforms to be obliged (see this contribution), in most other legal matters the platforms will probably only be providers of the technology, so that the individual streamer is responsible for compliance with German laws.
In this respect, here is a small collection of articles about Twitch, which will probably be judged on mixers.
Relevant for well-known streamers who want to switch from Twitch to Mixer or may even want to be active on both platforms, this article be concerned with what happens if someone on the other platform has possibly already used my name and how I can prevent someone from doing so in the future.
Of course, the questions for professional streamers also apply to mixers, whether it makes sense to set up professional structures such as contracts, company form and the like and how I organize this best. As for streamers on Twitch or Creator on YouTube, I can help here as well. This is especially true, of course, when considering whether you want to work on both platforms and therefore perhaps need help like co-streamers, but at the same time, but marketing, securing the brand and much more.
I will publish a few more articles on the topic of mixers and law in the near future, because there are still unanswered questions, for example, if you stream in English but live in Germany.
Marian Härtel is a lawyer and entrepreneur specializing in copyright law, competition law and IT/IP law, with a focus on games, esports, media and blockchain.
