Twitch sent out an email today updating users on what the platform is doing to combat the issues that some creators are having with DMCA notices.
The platform has set up a way for streamers to more easily track copyright strikes and DMCA notices that they receive through the platform itself.
Along with putting a copyright strike tracker in the Video Producer for streamers, Twitch has also made it so that DMCA notices are given to you via notifications in Twitch itself. Previously, DMCA notices were only emailed to people.
This news comes after an abundance of DMCA takedown notices that flooded the inboxes of top creators last summer. The notices forced the content creation community into a panic and many streamers, who were looking to protect themselves legally, deleted all of the VODs on their channel, regardless of whether they had DMCA-friendly content.
During that process, one of the primary complaints by streamers was that it was difficult to manually delete everything in their Twitch library. Along with the other changes announced today, Twitch has made it so that streamers can select to unpublish all VODs on their channel.
In a blog post, Twitch also detailed changes that the platform will make in the coming months, including a restructure of the website’s database of clips and giving streamers access to more information on DMCA-related issues.
The Clip database changes will be made so streamers can “expand selective deletion” so that they can get rid of clips that may not be DMCA friendly.
While the initial DMCA issues came to Twitch last summer, the problem still resonates since some content creators take the looming legal actions more seriously than others.
Sodapoppin expressed his confusion today on Twitter with more and more streamers seemingly not remembering all of the notices that were dished out less than a year ago.
“I see some streams not listening to any DMCA music (me one of them), and other streamers (a lot of them) listening to whatever again,” he wrote. “Like am I paranoid or something? Did they stop giving DMCA strikes out? Cause…i definitely got one. What is going on.”
Soda said he received a notice for playing part of a song by Taylor Swift last year and it showed him “how fucking real this DMCA shit is.”
Meanwhile, other top creators like NICKMERCS and TimTheTatman muted their audio during an in-game Fortnite event in December because “Demon Fire” by AC/DC was being played.
Both streamers, who are among the most-watched on Twitch, have been extremely cautious in making sure that they don’t accidentally play copyrighted material during their streams.
Similarly, Twitch changed the audio of a live performance by Metallica during BlizzConline in February to avoid any potential rights issues.
Responding to Sodapoppin on Twitter, fellow Twitch partner CohhCarnage said that the DMCA notices last year were more of a scare tactic than anything, but the potential of being sued makes it wise for Soda to avoid playing music.
“The only thing that makes the strikes is the companies that own the music,” he said. “They made a big push a while back to scare Twitch into some kind of action. It didn’t work. That could happen again any day, it just hasn’t. But they’ve shown it can. You’re smart to not play that music.”
Others, like rapper and streamer T-Pain, have looked to find ways for streamers to have DMCA-friendly music options while they’re live. As the sole owner of the music he’s produced in recent years, T-Pain said that content creators can use his recent work without fear of getting any sort of notice.
He later went one step further by creating a SoundCloud playlist of DMCA-friendly music for content creators to use as a backdrop to their stream called the Pizzle Pack.
