Good morning. Spending today pilfering through your Halloween candy haul from last night, looking for the best sweets? DIY creator Unnecessary Inventions made a gadget for that—with a scanner that sorts between good and bad candy, keeping the best (Reese’s) and ditching the worst (3 Musketeers).

— Hannah Doyle & Nate Graber-Lipperman

Vouch Founder Starts AI Licensing Company

One of the top concerns we’ve heard from creators this year: Big Tech companies like Google, Apple, and NVIDIA training their generative AI models on creators’ videos without permission or compensation.

Now a startup called Troveo is looking to solve the problem by paying creators to license their content to AI companies. 

Founded by Cameo and Vouch alum Marty Pesis, Troveo just raised $4.5 million in venture funding and is on track to pay $5 million to creators by the end of the year.

“We thought a lot about if we want to be on the protection and enforcement side or on the licensing and monetization side [of generative AI],” Pesis told us. “There is a window right now where [creator] content is extremely valuable as training data, and I think leaning in and taking advantage of that opportunity is the way to go.”

How Troveo works →

• Creators submit high-quality videos (1080p resolution and up) and Troveo clips, dubs, and annotates the content.

• Troveo takes that content package to market and makes deals with AI companies that vary on a per-model or per-year basis. 

• Once the content is sold, creators are paid on a rev share model based on gross earnings. 

Zoom out: Troveo is joined by other startups like Calliope Networks that pay creators to get in the AI licensing game. But not all platforms are on board with compensating creators for AI scraping—YouTube is supportive of creators working with third-party companies, while Meta says creators overestimate how valuable their content is for training AI.

“I think in the tech space it’s always a race to value and then legal and regulation catch up afterwards,” Pesis said. “A similar thing happened with Napster and Limewire in the music space. It took a long time, but [licensing] did get resolved. And I think we’re going to see something similar here.”

We're polling you, our Publish readers, about your experiences, POVs, and businesses to finish out the year with insights into the future of the creator industry. This poll is part of an ongoing series we'll share in December.

Kim Kardashian Helps Kai Cenat Announce His New Subathon

Twitch streamer Kai Cenat is kicking off his second “Mafiathon” tonight, with rapper Lil Uzi Vert set to appear on Cenat’s channel. During the full-month marathon, Cenat will stream all day, every day throughout November.

Catch up quick: Cenat broke a Twitch record during his first Mafiathon this past February, passing 306,000 concurrent subscribers by the end of the month.

That number has since been topped—VTuber Ironmouse’s charity subathon helped her reach 326,000 this month.

So, Cenat pulled out all the stops ahead of Mafiathon 2:

• He dressed up as a mafia boss while appearing at NBA Opening Night.

• He dropped a teaser that featured Kim Kardashian playing his fictional therapist—the video has tens of millions of views across platforms.

• He filmed a parody military ad that encouraged viewers to tune in daily.

“It’s insane how far ahead Kai is in the streaming game,” creator and former professional gamer Myth tweeted in reaction to the ad. 

Zoom out: Twitch 1) lost 10% of its viewership market share among streaming platforms in Q2 2) recently initiated layoffs and 3) continues to lose money.

• Yet the stream appearances of celebrities like Vert and Kevin Hart—and even top politicians—has shown that content on Twitch is increasingly relevant in the mainstream.

• “[Mafiathon 2] is the cultural highlight of Q4 in the digital and entertainment realm,” Eugene Wu, one of Cenat’s reps at United Talent Agency, posted on LinkedIn.

YouTube Hits Record-High Revenue

On Tuesday, YouTube parent company Alphabet revealed the video streaming platform’s Q3 advertising revenue: $8.9 billion, a 12% increase from the same time last year.

Other noteworthy stats that Alphabet revealed during its earnings call:

• 30%: the annual increase in the number of creators who make the majority of their YouTube revenue from TV screens.

• $50 billion: YouTube’s total ads and subscription revenue over the past four quarters.

• 20%: the year-over-year increase in upfront commitments from advertisers.

Zoom out: Growth in connected TV audiences appears to be a key component of YouTube’s pitch to advertisers. On the earnings call, Google Chief Business Officer Philip Schindler specifically mentioned shows created by Michelle Khare and Rhett and Link as driving viewership on bigger screens, while Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai noted YouTube’s recent platform updates that make its TV apps resemble Netflix.

📽️ From The Studio

LA Creators: Join us November 10 for our next Coffee With Creators event in Venice. Colin and Samir will be hosting this time to meet other creators and sell merch from their first-ever product company, Boardies. RSVP here.

🔥 Press Worthy

• Lawyer and creator Erica Kullberg is hosting a free Q&A tomorrow to help creators negotiate brand deals.

• Snap doubled its paying subscribers year-over-year last quarter.

• With Memberful, it's easy to earn sustainable, recurring revenue by turning your subscribers and followers into paying members.*

• This trends report finds that employee hiring demand from creator economy businesses has more than doubled since last year.

• Russ “Retro Gaming Corps” Crandall opens up on how legal threats from Nintendo have destabilized his creator career.

_{*This is sponsored advertising content.}

📚️ Thank You For Pressing Publish

The content we’re looking forward to reading, watching, and listening to this weekend.

• Read: Too many people want to be creators—which is good for companies and bad for individuals, The Economist argues.

• Watch: Filmmaker Daren Michael shows viewers why he left New York City and moved to a state he’d never previously visited.

• Listen:The Town explores whether there’s a right way to use AI while making movies.