Twitch DMCA email

[spartaman64]

When I saw this email I had a mini heart attack because I thought I got DMCAed for a second even though I almost never stream and don't have vods lol.

 

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When we receive a DMCA notification, we process the notification in accordance with our DMCA Guidelines. This includes removing the content, sharing the details with the channel owner, and tracking the allegation.  

DMCA takedown notifications can affect your ability to stream because we, as part of our efforts to comply with the DMCA and similar global laws, issue and track copyright strikes and ban the accounts of those who repeatedly infringe the copyrights of others. 

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How did we get to this moment? Until May of this year, streamers received fewer than 50 music-related DMCA notifications each year on Twitch. Beginning in May, however, representatives for the major record labels started sending thousands of DMCA notifications each week that targeted creators' archives, mostly for snippets of tracks in years-old Clips. We continue to receive large batches of notifications, and we don’t expect that to slow down. 

This means two things: 1) if you play recorded music on your stream, you need to stop doing that and 2) if you haven’t already, you should review your historical VODs and Clips that may have music in them and delete any archives that might.  

We were as surprised by this sudden avalanche of notifications as many of you were. We also realized that we needed to provide streamers with more educational programs and content management tools to help you deal with this unprecedented number of notifications coming in all at once. So, while we continued to remove content targeted by these notifications as required by the DMCA, we understand VODs and Clips from years ago may not necessarily reflect your current approach to music. Therefore, we also paused the processing of strikes associated with these batched notifications in order to give you the tools, information, and time that you would need to deal with them.

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While we haven’t received more than a handful of DMCA notifications targeting in-game music, if you’re playing games with recorded music in them, we recommend you review their End User License Agreements (that wall of text at the beginning of a game) to see how the terms cover streaming with that music. One way to do this is to search for a game’s official EULA online and then do a ctrl+f (Command+f on Mac) search for words like “stream,” “licensed,” and “music” to point you toward the correct sections. If you’re unsure about the rights, some games allow you to turn off music when streaming, or you can mute the game audio yourself. If neither of those apply, consider turning off VODs and Clips. 

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Some of you have asked why we don't have a license covering any and all uses of recorded music. We are actively speaking with the major record labels about potential approaches to additional licenses that would be appropriate for the Twitch service. That said, the current constructs for licenses that the record labels have with other services (which typically take a cut of revenue from creators for payment to record labels) make less sense for Twitch. The vast majority of our creators don’t have recorded music as a part of their streams, and the revenue implications to creators of such a deal are substantial. We’re open-minded to new structures that could work for Twitch’s unique service, but we must be clear that they may take some time to materialize or may never happen at all. In the meantime, we’re focused on building tools to better help you manage VODs and Clips and providing licensed music options like Soundtrack, while we explore all options.

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And just so there’s no confusion, to music creators: we pay public performance licenses in order for you to perform music live to your communities. You should also avoid using pre-recorded music, and disable VODs and Clips, unless you have the rights to the music and compositions. 

 

Well some of this email is BS I know of several streamers who had their channel banned from a first time offense. 

Also there's stuff like this

https://t.co/zqYxfrshR0

Jake was walking past a store playing music for a few seconds and now hes at risk of his channel getting banned.

Also its better to lose part of your revenue than to have your channel banned so twitch should absolutely pursue a license like that.

[Teddy07]

4 minutes ago, spartaman64 said:

so twitch should absolutely pursue a license like that.

Yes, twitch is a money printing machine now with the cuts they take