The Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed into law in 1998 in an attempt to combat piracy. Part of the law allows parties to send DMCA notices to those they believe are infringing copyright.
It's a controversial act, not least because it's been used by companies in the past to arm others to remove content or discussions they might not be legally obligated to do. /P>
However, the DMCA allows services like Twitch to host user-generated content that could potentially infringe copyright, but only on the condition that prompt action is taken to remove it once a claim is made. has been filed.
Normally, users have the right to respond to copyright strikes. This is because these claims can often be overzealous, claiming content that is not in fact copyright infringing.
Services like YouTube are notorious for their endless deletions and now it seems to be happening on Twitch as well. It is very common for Twitch streamers to play music in the background while they are live.
While Twitch mutes sections of archived streams if it automatically detects copyrighted music, the service now goes a step further and deletes the entire archive altogether.
eSports consultant Rod Breslau was one of the first to tweet about an email he received from Twitch.
In the email, Twitch claims that the Breslau channel "has been subject to one or more DMCA takedown notices and the identified content has been removed." The post goes on to acknowledge that while no chance was given to file a counterclaim, this is only a disclaimer and not a copyright notice.
This is an email that many other streamers have received, and it was not only sent to those who are part of the Twitch Affiliate Program.
Twitch released the following statement:
When Kotaku spoke with a Twitch spokesperson, they confirmed that the company had received thousands of notifications from copyright owners.
It's likely that Twitch doesn't have the resources to handle all of the complaints, and a global takedown was the quickest result to avoid further fallout.
If this affected you, it doesn't mean you can't play music on your stream. In fact, Twitch recently launched a new feature called "Soundtrack by Twitch" which aims to circumvent this exact problem.
