social · Amazon
You’re creating on Twitch, which means…
Twitch never says the stream is yours, and the one sentence that winds the licence back down covers only “streaming live and pre-recorded audio-visual works” — so the chat, the forum postings and everything else you make there is licensed for as long as the law allows.
What they own
Not your stream. Everything Twitch lists as its own property is defined “excluding User Content”, and “All Materials are the property of Twitch” stops at that boundary. But these Terms never say you keep it either — “you own”, “own your”, “you retain” and “ownership” appear zero times in Twitch’s Terms of Service. What you get instead is a licence Twitch calls “nonexclusive”, which leaves you free to license the same work elsewhere.
What you own
Enough to take it elsewhere — on Twitch’s terms. Because the licence is nonexclusive, the same stream can run on another platform, and Section 11 says you may, “only if” the Twitch experience is “no less than the experience on other platforms or services” and you do not “provide links, or otherwise direct your community, to leave Twitch”. You are also the one who warrants you had the right to everything in the stream, including anyone else’s face or voice.
What you don’t
Any way to take the licence back. It is “irrevocable”, and it runs “to the furthest extent and for the maximum duration permitted by applicable law (including in perpetuity if permitted under applicable law)”. Deleting reaches only part of it: the sentence that ends the licence opens “With respect to streaming live and pre-recorded audio-visual works”, which is not what your chat, your forum postings or your wiki contributions are — and even for a stream it carries five exceptions, including anything a viewer turned into a Clip and anything Twitch used for promotion.
What they can do with it
Use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform and display it, “in any form, format, media, or media channels now known or later developed or discovered”, for Twitch’s business and its affiliates’ — that is Amazon’s. They can sub-licence all of it, and the same grant covers your “name, identity, likeness, and voice”. Twitch also holds “the exclusive right to monetize the Twitch Services”, so the advertising around your stream is theirs to sell, and these Terms set out no payment to you in return.
The clauses
The grant
Twitch Terms of Service — Section 8(a)(i), User Content › License to Twitch & Other Twitch Users ↗
Unless otherwise agreed to in a written agreement between you and Twitch that was signed by an authorized representative of Twitch, if you submit, transmit, display, perform, post, or store User Content using the Twitch Services, you grant Twitch and its sub-licensees, to the furthest extent and for the maximum duration permitted by applicable law (including in perpetuity if permitted under applicable law), an unrestricted, worldwide, irrevocable, fully sub-licenseable, nonexclusive, and royalty-free right to: (a) use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display your User Content (including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Twitch Services (and derivative works thereof)) in any form, format, media, or media channels now known or later developed or discovered; and (b) use the name, identity, likeness, and voice (or other biographical information) that you submit in connection with such User Content. Twitch can exercise these rights in connection with Twitch and/or its affiliates’ business.
Irrevocable
There is no taking it back. The word is in the sentence, and it is doing exactly what it says — the grant is not conditioned on your account, your channel, or your continued consent.
In perpetuity if permitted
Twitch does not simply write “perpetual”. It writes the maximum the law where you live allows, and then names perpetuity as the target. The length of what you signed depends on your jurisdiction, not on the contract.
Fully sub-licenseable
The grant runs to “Twitch and its sub-licensees” from the first line. It is not Twitch acquiring a right and later deciding to share it — the downstream holders are named in the grant itself.
The word that isn’t here
Nowhere in these Terms does Twitch say you own or retain your content. Section 7 excludes User Content from the Materials Twitch claims, and this section takes a nonexclusive licence over it — the rest is left unstated.
Your name, face and voice
Twitch Terms of Service — Section 8(a)(i)(b) and 8(a)(iii), User Content ↗
(b) use the name, identity, likeness, and voice (or other biographical information) that you submit in connection with such User Content. Twitch can exercise these rights in connection with Twitch and/or its affiliates’ business.…Should your User Content contain the name, identity, likeness, and voice (or other biographical information) of third parties, you represent and warrant that you have obtained the appropriate consents and/or licenses for your use of such elements and that Twitch, other users (as described in section (a)(ii) above), and their respective sub-licensees (as applicable) are allowed to use them to the extent indicated in these Terms of Service.
A second prong
Prong (a) covers the stream. Prong (b) covers you — your name, your identity, your likeness, your voice. They sit in one sentence, but they are two different things being handed over.
An open question
Prong (b) reaches the likeness “that you submit in connection with such User Content” — the same stream. The wind-down in 8(a)(iv) ends “the rights granted by you hereunder”, but only “With respect to streaming live and pre-recorded audio-visual works”. Whether that limiter carries the likeness attached to a deleted stream down with it is not something the clause settles either way.
Affiliates’ business
The rights can be exercised for Twitch “and/or its affiliates’ business”. Twitch is owned by Amazon, and the clause does not stop at the edge of twitch.tv.
Everyone on your stream
If a guest, a co-streamer or a person in your background appears, you are the one warranting that Twitch, other users, and their sub-licensees may all use that person’s likeness. The clearing job is yours.
The second licence — to every other Twitch user
Twitch Terms of Service — Section 8(a)(ii), User Content › License to Twitch & Other Twitch Users ↗
The Twitch Services may allow users to access, use, and/or share User Content outside the Twitch Services. If this sharing functionality is turned on in your account settings, you grant each other Twitch user, solely as necessary to enable such functionality, a worldwide, irrevocable, fully sub-licenseable, nonexclusive, and royalty-free license to: (a) use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, and display your User Content and any derivative works thereof in any form, format, media, or media channels now known or later developed or discovered; and (b) use the name, identity, likeness, and voice (or other biographical information) included in your User Content.
A setting, not a signature
This grant is switched on by an account setting rather than by a separate agreement. What turns it on is a toggle; what it creates is an irrevocable licence.
It runs to viewers
The licence is to each other Twitch user, and it is sub-licensable in their hands. Once it attaches to a clip, turning the setting back off does not reach the copies already made.
Off Twitch
The whole point of this grant is use “outside the Twitch Services”. It is the clause that lets your stream travel to platforms you never agreed to.
What “User Content” means — and what the wind-down reaches
Twitch allows you to distribute streaming live and pre-recorded audio-visual works; to use services, such as chat, bulletin boards, forum postings, wiki contributions, and voice interactive services; and to participate in other activities in which you may create, post, transmit, perform, or store content, messages, text, sound, images, applications, code, or other data or materials on the Twitch Services (“User Content”).…With respect to streaming live and pre-recorded audio-visual works, the rights granted by you hereunder will terminate a commercially reasonable amount of time after you delete such User Content from the Twitch Services, or generally by closing your account, except: (a) to the extent you shared it with others as part of the Twitch Services and others copied or stored portions of the User Content (e.g., made a Clip); (b) to the extent others accessed, used, and/or shared your User Content outside the Twitch Services pursuant to the license granted in Section 8(a) above, (c) to the extent Twitch used it for promotional purposes; (d) for the reasonable time it takes to remove from backup and other systems; or (e) to the extent Twitch is required by applicable law to retain it.…Upon termination of these Terms of Service, any provision which, by its nature or express terms should survive, will survive such termination or expiration, including, but not limited to, Sections 7-10, and 14-20.
The limiter
The wind-down does not open on User Content. It opens “With respect to streaming live and pre-recorded audio-visual works”, and that is the only User Content the sentence reaches.
Chat is not a broadcast
Section 8 defines User Content to include “chat, bulletin boards, forum postings, wiki contributions, and voice interactive services”, and “messages, text, sound, images, applications, code”. None of that is a streamed audio-visual work, so the one sentence in these Terms that ends the licence does not reach any of it.
Clips are carved out
Exception (a) means a single viewer clipping your stream keeps that fragment licensed after you delete the broadcast. The most-shared thirty seconds of your channel is the part most likely to survive.
Promotional use is carved out
Exception (c) has no time limit attached. If Twitch used your stream to promote Twitch, deleting it does not end that use.
Commercially reasonable
Even for the part that does end, the end is not a date. It is whatever period is reasonable for the business, measured from deletion.
It outlives the account
Section 20(d) names “Sections 7-10” among the provisions that survive termination. Section 8 is the section you grant the licence in. Closing the account ends the agreement; the clause that hands over your content is on the list of things that carry on.
The licence running the other way
Twitch Terms of Service — Section 7, License ↗
The Twitch Services are owned and operated by Twitch. Unless otherwise indicated, all content, information, and other materials on the Twitch Services (excluding User Content, set out in Section 8 below), including, without limitation, Twitch’s trademarks and logos…and the selection and arrangement thereof (collectively, the “Materials”) are protected by relevant intellectual property and proprietary rights and laws. All Materials are the property of Twitch or its subsidiaries or affiliated companies and/or third-party licensors. Unless otherwise expressly stated in writing by Twitch, by agreeing to these Terms of Service you are granted a limited, non-sublicensable, and non-transferable license (i.e., a personal and limited right) to access and use the Twitch Services for your personal use or internal business use only.…Twitch can terminate this license as set out in Section 18.
Read the subject
The sentence reads “you are granted” — it runs from Twitch to you, and it covers the site, not your stream. The grant that matters is the one that begins “you grant Twitch and its sub-licensees”.
The carve-out
Twitch claims everything on the service as its “Materials” and then writes “(excluding User Content, set out in Section 8 below)”. That parenthesis is the closest these Terms come to saying your work is not theirs — and it is a definition of their property, not a statement about yours.
The asymmetry, in one page
Yours is limited, non-sublicensable, non-transferable, and Twitch can end it under Section 18. Theirs is unrestricted, fully sub-licenseable, and irrevocable.
Who sells the ads, and where else you may stream
In addition, you agree that you are solely responsible for ensuring that your Branded Content complies with any and all applicable advertising laws, regulations, and guidelines, including without limitation the U.S. Federal Trade Commission’s Guidelines (the “Advertising Guidelines”).…When you are streaming live on the Twitch Services you may simultaneously live stream or broadcast (“Simulcast”) on any other network, platform, or service that supports live streaming of user generated content, only if: You ensure that the quality of Twitch users’ experience of your Simulcast is, at a minimum, no less than the experience on other platforms or services…You do not provide links, or otherwise direct your community, to leave Twitch for your simulcast on other services…Twitch has the exclusive right to monetize the Twitch Services, including without limitation, the exclusive right to sell, serve, and display advertisements on the Twitch Services. Third-party advertising networks are not allowed to serve advertising through the Twitch Services. However, you can publish Branded Content using the Twitch Services as set forth in Section 9 above.
Exclusive
The advertising that runs against your stream is Twitch’s to sell, and no third-party network may serve it. These Terms set out no payment to you in return, and they are not the whole contract for a streamer who earns: Twitch publishes a separate “Monetized Streamer Agreement”, named on this page and not contained in it.
You may stream elsewhere — quietly
The nonexclusive licence lets you put the same broadcast on another service. Section 11 then sets the conditions: the Twitch version must be “no less than the experience on other platforms or services”, and you may not “provide links, or otherwise direct your community, to leave Twitch”. You keep the right; you do not keep the audience.
Branded Content is the exception
Sponsorships you bring yourself are allowed, and Section 12 points you to Section 9 for them. Section 9 is also where the risk lands: “you are solely responsible for ensuring that your Branded Content complies with any and all applicable advertising laws”.
Due Dilly reads the paperwork and reports what it says. This is not legal advice.