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It’s Tuesday and if 3D movies were your favorite part of the early ‘00s, Meta has some big news for you: it’s bringing 3D Instagram photos to Quest headsets.

Today’s News

MONEY MOVES

Disney is suing to stop YouTube from poaching a key exec

The announcement: Late last week, YouTube revealed that it had poached longtime Disney exec Justin Connolly to manage its relationships with major media companies and run its burgeoning live sports division. The new hire apparently notified Disney ahead of his resignation, and didn’t respond when asked if he planned to work for YouTube.

Now, Disney is pulling out the stops to keep Connolly from jumping ship.

The lawsuit: Within hours of YouTube’s announcement, Disney asked the Los Angeles Superior Court for an injunction to stop Connolly’s appointment. The House of Mouse’s lawsuit against YouTube accused the video platform of unfair competition and tortious interference with contractual relations, saying it induced Connolly to break his employment agreement. (The exec has been with Disney/ESPN since 2003, but he signed a new three-year employment contract last November. According to Disney, that means he’s legally obligated to continue working for the company for almost two more years.)

Disney further alleged that Connolly—who has been leading negotiations for it to renew its content distribution deal with YouTube—could leak confidential information that would affect ongoing discussions between the two companies.

The context: Fox filed a similar suit against Netflix in 2016 and the court ruled in Fox’s favor, so it’s possible Disney’s complaint will pan out in its favor, too. But the real takeaway here is that Disney is treating YouTube (which is the #1 streaming service in the U.S. and shaping up to be a force in live sports) as a serious competitor.

Considering Disney owns ESPN and just signed a five-year Disney+ deal with the Women’s Champions League, it likely views Connolly as an invaluable asset—one it doesn’t want YouTube (aka the holder of NFL Sunday Ticket rights) to get its hands on.

🔆 PRESENTED BY CREATORS HQ 🔆

More and more creators are moving to Dubai. Here’s why:

From Yes Theory to Liam Dipple, some of the world’s biggest creators are moving to Dubai. We already know resources like Creators HQ—an initiative that offers Golden Visa assistance, expert-led workshops, and more—can be a big draw for digital stars. But we wanted to know why creators are relocating to the UAE in their own words. So, we did a little digging.

Here’s what two creators had to say about moving to Dubai:

Bayleigh Daily (500K Cross-Platform Followers): “Dubai is the land of opportunities right now. When I go to Dubai, I’m on my grind.”

For creators considering a move to Dubai, Creators HQ is there to help: With $40.8 million in backing and partners like Meta, YouTube, Komi, and Colin and Samir, Creators HQoffers everything creators need to thrive in Dubai—from relocation assistance to cutting-edge studio space.

HEADLINES IN BRIEF 📰

• CoComelon is leaving Netflix. All eight seasons of the kid-friendly YouTube hit will reportedly move to Disney Plus beginning in 2027. (The Verge)
  
  

• TikTok has attributed its latest round of layoffs to an effort "to create a more efficient operating model for the team's long-term growth." (Business Insider)
  
  

• As Discord seeks a way to make its communities more accessible, SVP of Product Peter Sellis says “there’s an incredible opportunity now with large language models and their ability to summarize conversations.” (The Verge)
  
  

• Reddit’s stock “dropped about 5%” on Monday after Wells Fargo said it expects the platform’s traffic to fall as “Google more aggressively implements AI features in search.” (Business Insider)

CREATOR COMMOTION

Creators have accused Twitch of “double-taxing” their income

The context: Discoverability isn’t Twitch’s strong suit. To reach new viewers, creators often have to promote themselves on external channels like TikTok and YouTube—a process that involves plenty of extra effort.

In recognition of that struggle, streamers who’ve ‘made it’ on Twitch frequently give back to newbies by gifting them with donations, subs, and Bits.

The feature: Twitch apparently knows this, because its latest feature is designed to help streamers support one another by gifting those subs and Bits. The problem - as creator ABYSS pointed out - is the tool does that by effectively “double-taxing” their income—and giving Twitch itself more money.

Essentially, the optional feature allows streamers to buy gifted subs and Bits with their banked income, meaning they can tap into current earnings before cashing out at the end of the month. But streamers are still buying the subs/Bits at full price, directly from Twitch, meaning the only real advantage is not having to take the extra step of paying with a credit card.

The response: There is, however, a big potential disadvantage to using Twitch’s new payment method—and creators aren’t thrilled about it. As creator Sir Hans Vader laid out, if a streamer’s chat donates 100 subs, the streamer typically gets 50% of the revenue from that transaction, with Twitch keeping the other 50% for itself. If the streamer then gifts 50 subs using that money, Twitch would take another 50% from the receiving creator.

Vader isn’t the only streamer unhappy with those numbers. Others, like ABYSS, have chimed in with similar complaints. So far, however, Twitch hasn’t offered much of a response. While the platform is usually quick to bow to backlash, this particular feature still seems to be rolling out to U.S. streamers as planned.

HAVE YOU HEARD? 👀

Last week in creator news…

Each week, we handpick a selection of stories to give you a snapshot of trends, updates, business moves, and more from around the creator industry. Here are the highlights from the penultimate week of May:

The headmaster: The first class of Kai Cenat’s Streamer University might also be the last. The Twitch star’s bootcamp is free-to-attend boot for any creator with internet access, but ~150 creators were specifically hand-selected by Cenat to congregate in-person (again, for free) at the University of Akron. Backlash against some of those streamers led to a rough moment on stream, when Cenat said he probably won’t bring Streamer Universiy back because “no matter which way I try to make sure things is good, I always get the bad end of the stick.”

The chart shakeup: After debuting at #1 on YouTube’s brand-new podcast charts, The Joe Rogan Experience is no longer top dog. As of last week, Rogan’s show was knocked down to #2 by true crime ‘cast Rotten Mango.

The retiree: Luke Nichols is retiring from his decade-old YouTube channel Outdoor Boys. The longtime creator told his 15 million subscribers that he’s worried about the effect of fame on him and his family. Nichols’ future plans, however, seem to contradict that statement: he added that he plans to help his young son Thomas grow his own channel, which currently has 888,000 subscribers.

The nomination: The Sidemen’s Netflix reality show, Inside, is the first content creator production to be nominated for the U.K.’s National Television Award.

The ecommerce shift: We all know TikTok Shop is big biz. Now, it looks like YouTube might be shifting resources from Shorts in an attempt to emulate its rival’s ecommerce success. Todd Sherman, who was a product lead for YouTube’s short-form division, is switching gears to perform the same job for YouTube Shopping.

LISTEN UP 🎙️ 

This week on the podcast:

“Creator AI Investment BOOM”: It’s been a big month for Google. On the latest installment of Creator Upload, hosts Lauren Schnipper and Joshua Cohen break down the tech giant’s recent slate of game-changing AI announcements—including Veo 3’s scarily realistic videos and the "Flow" filmmaking tool.

Also on the discussion list: Whalar's $400M valuation, the $45M raised by Caspar Lee's Creator Ventures, and Publicis’ acquisition of Captiv8. Check out the full episode on Spotify and Apple Podcasts to find out more.

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Today's newsletter is from: James Hale, Emily Burton, Drew Baldwin, Sam Gutelle, and Josh Cohen.