Good morning. Film creator Freddie Wong released his feature film, We’re All Gonna Die, on digital download platforms earlier this weekβ€”including the movie-pirating site Torrent.

But? Wong added a special message for anyone who downloaded a pirated copy: β€œAhoy, matey!”

Inside Tonight’s AMP Livestream

Pro League Network (right) is bringing its SlapFIGHT Championship to the AMP Summer House 30-day livestream (left) as part of its Friday Night Fight series /Β Pro League Network,Β SlapFIGHT Championship

We’re 18 days into streamer group AMP’s monthlong Summer House livestream, where creators Kai Cenat, Fanum, Agent 00, Duke Dennis, ImDavisss, and ChrisNxtDoor are streaming for 12 hours a day on Twitch. So far, they’ve amassed more than 41 million views, done activities like rodeo steer wrestling, and hosted guests including Travis Hunter and Jeremiah from Love Island.

Tonight’s big event? The Pro League Network (PLN) SlapFIGHT Championship, where athletes slap each other and score points on impact, defense, and recovery. Eight competitors will face off at 10pm ET.Β 

The game plan: PLN brought a six-camera setup and 15-person crew to the Summer House (filmed at former NBA star Tony Parker’s 53-acre estate in Texas). Cenat and Fanum will livestream the SlapFIGHT championship on their Twitch channels, and PLN will stream the event on YouTube.

The creator angle: β€œWe aren’t really encumbered by having to sell a stadium full of seats to produce our sports,” PLN co-founder Mike Salvaris told us. β€œWe can produce it in your backyard. And I think the entertainment value for the creator’s audience is greater than streaming something that’s in a big arena.” 

  • PLN sports like SlapFIGHT and CarJitsu are visually interesting, enabling viewers to tune in at any time during the livestream and engage quickly, PLN co-founder Bill Yucatonis told us.Β 

  • When PLN brought CarJitsu to Cenat’s Mafiathon 2, it generated more than 50 million impressions. Another CarJitsu Twitch stream with T-Pain brought in 500K concurrent viewers.

Zoom out: As broadcast TV viewership declines, creator-helmed sports media brands like Jomboy, the Savannah Bananas, and PLN are gaining steam. And creators like Ludwig and Jesser are putting on their own live sports events.

β€œWe’re trained to watch sports together live and I think creators are starting to realize the power of that as it drives their own streaming audience. It gives them something to talk about and it gives their community something to engage with live,” Salvaris said.

Meet the Lobbyist Trying to Save Canadian TikTok

Scott Benzie of Digital First Canada is advocating for creator protections in the country /Β Digital First Canada

β€œYou cannot allow a platform to own your audience because they could be taken away from you at any minute,” Scott Benzie, executive director of Digital First Canada (DFC), told us.

Driving the conversation: Earlier this month, TikTok announced that it would no longer sponsor Canadian cultural programs like the National Screen Institute’s TikTok Accelerator for Indigenous Creators. This news followed the Canadian government’s decision in November to shut down the TikTok Canada offices over alleged national security concerns.

Benzie is trying to flip the script on TikTok in Canada, asserting that β€œdigital creators are Canada's greatest export.” He estimates that there are roughly 100,000 Canadian creators making $100K or more on their content.

The backstory:Β 

  • In 2022, Canada updated its broadcast act (Bill C-11) to include streaming services and digital creatorsβ€”meaning over half of all content on Canadian platforms would have to meet certain criteria to qualify as Canadian.Β 

  • Benzie, who’s also the CEO of Buffer Film Festival, knew this would negatively impact creators who didn’t meet the strict qualifications, so he founded DFC to formally lobby Canadian parliament on behalf of creators.Β 

Although Bill C-11 passed in parliament, DFC’s government advocacy branch successfully lobbied for a special instruction made to Canada’s telecoms commission to keep their policies from harming content creators. The group also helps Canadian creators interface with parliament and partners with nonprofit Road to Freedom to provide education and equipment to Indigenous creators.

Big picture: The possibility of a TikTok ban is still looming, both in Canada and the US. While DFC was four years ahead of the recently formed Congressional Creators Caucus here in the states, both represent a growing trend: creators lobbying for more industry-friendly policies and programs, from both governments and platforms.

Platform Roundup: New Cash, New Features

YouTube Studio is trying A/B testing for video titles /Β YouTube Creators

YouTube Studio is expanding its β€œtest & compare” feature, allowing a select group of creators to A/B test video titles in addition to thumbnails. YouTube plans to expand the feature to more channels in the future.

Substack raised a $100 million Series C. In a blog post, Substack co-founders Chris Best, Hamish McKenzie, and Jairaj Sethi shared plans to use the investment to improve Substack’s monetization system, invest in the mobile app, and β€œ[build] tools that give superpowers to anyone who has something important to say.”

TikTok is adding a feature to woo musicians and songwriters. As part of a beta test, a small number of record labels and artists will have access to a β€œsongwriter” label and new tab which will exclusively feature music.

βž• Community Tab

On Wednesday, we said that Portal A’s Moonshots program helped creator Eric Williams produce eight episodes of Confession Hole exclusively on Substack and helped him move his subscribers there from Patreon.

Moonshots actually produced eight interviews that were then turned into 50 episodes. Williams’s team at CAA was responsible for the deal with Substack, and the show is available across platforms. Sorry about that.

πŸ”₯ Press Worthy

πŸ“š Thank You for Pressing Publish

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

  • Read: For Dazed, makeup artist and beauty creator Emily Wood talks about her answer to the β€œclean girl aesthetic,” a grungy, vibrant makeup look usually applied in excess (and in public).Β Β 

  • Watch: After a two-year hiatus from long-form YouTube, Vsauce returns. Ironically, he talks about the concept of being forgotten…and launches a clock that counts down how long you have to live, available on his website now.

  • Listen: After touring as a bassist with boygenius, Jay Som releases the first single off her forthcoming album with Float.

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