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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Twitch Streamers Feel Attacked by Confusing DMCA Takedowns

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Twitch surprised many streamers yesterday by informing them that they are once again pursuing content takedown claims related to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

A quick update about our ongoing work to give you more control over your content and help you make informed choices about using music on your channel, while respecting the rights of our music community partners:

— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) October 20, 2020

As the Twitch support team notes in the Twitter thread above, this issue dates back to June when Twitch started responding to takedown claims processed by the Recording Industry Association of America. The gist of the problem is that many Twitch streamers have used music and other copyrighted content in their streams for years now. As Twitch grows, more and more of the copyright holders are becoming aware of these practices and how they may or may not violate the copyright laws associated with these songs and other licensed works.

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Everything has been pretty quiet on the DMCA front since June, but that all changed yesterday when many streamers received an email from Twitch saying that they’ve begun the content review process again and will be enforcing new policies in the near future.

It is INSANE that @Twitch informs partners they deleted their content – and that there is more content in violation despite having NO identification system to find out what it is. Their solution to DMCA is for creators to delete their life's work. This is pure, gross negligence. pic.twitter.com/mhdXU5lEc5

— Devin (@DevinNash) October 20, 2020

The most important thing to note about that email is the section where Twitch informs affected streamers that they have automatically removed flagged content and that streamers should consider those removals to be a “warning.” Starting on October 23, though, they will be processing DMCA takedowns once more and will presumably be issuing penalties to streamers whose content violates these DMCA rules.

Here’s the problem: According to many streamers, they are not specifically being informed which of their videos violated DMCA regulations. So, if you’re a streamer who has been on the platform for years and has hundreds or thousands of videos on your account, then it’s kind of difficult to know what, exactly, you did wrong. Twitch advises their streaming partners to review their clips and VODs, but many streamers have decided to just delete everything rather than risk anything.

As you might imagine, many of those streamers are not happy with Twitch’s lack of communication.

I seriously don't understand why Twitch is so unable to provide documented reasoning as to what rules you break when you break them. There is a giant throughline for years now of people not knowing why they are suspended, hit with a warning, and now what content is DMCA'd.

— Sam (Teawrex), but spooky. (@TheTeawrex) October 20, 2020

Deleted all my twitch vods and clips DMCA too scary To those upset at all the lost combos, there will be combos that are 10x better moving forward

— Zain (@ZainNaghmi) October 20, 2020

Last DMCA sweep I got 2 strikes for the same song, cake by the ocean in just dance from back in 2017 when I was playing it. Which meant one more and I'm banned. I Purged basically everything. And I no longer play copyright music. I didn't get this big email, surprisingly. 😬

— Alinity (@AlinityTwitch) October 21, 2020

While it sounds like many Twitch streamers are fine with not playing licensed music on their streams moving forward, many believe they shouldn’t have to delete everything they’ve ever done simply as a precaution. As we mentioned, the fact that Twitch doesn’t even specifically inform streamers which videos violated their policies (at least in that mass email) means that there’s little in the way of precedent to work off of in terms of knowing what not to do moving forward.

That’s an especially big problem for streamers who never played licensed music on their streams in the first place and genuinely have no idea how to address this problem.

The worst part about this DMCA situation is there is no indication of what it was or when it was. I have Vods from several years ago still. I don’t play music on my stream so it must be a soundtrack from a game. Which is frustrating as I’d happily delete the VOD

— DansGaming (@Dansgaming) October 20, 2020

If all of this sounds vaguely familiar, that may be because YouTube was hit by a wave of DMCA claims years ago that greatly impacted how content is created, distributed, and promoted on that platform. In fact, there are more than a few YouTube content creators who feel that Twitch streamers shouldn’t be as surprised as they currently are.

As a youtuber who has dealt with DMCA for years I have very little sympathy to twitch streamers who have played full on top 40 music every stream for years. They all knew it was wrong and didn't care. pic.twitter.com/7GdO2Szrc0

— TheQuartering (@TheQuartering) October 20, 2020

Of course, reactions like those don’t necessarily account for the streamers who never played music in the first place and are now receiving takedowns for reasons that they can’t quite explain and reasons that Twitch is not conveniently relaying. Furthermore, there are some who lived through the YouTube takedown era who fear that the ramifications of that platform’s copyright strikes will soon spread to Twitch.

So here's what's gonna happen next : (Since I lived through this already on youtube) it'll start with music DMCA's but soon pissy devs will be using the system to delete coverage of their title or discussion of topics they disagree with during play to pull your vods on twitch. pic.twitter.com/cDYfuDTD3C

— Splattercat (@SplattrCatGames) October 20, 2020

That’s an interesting point to keep in mind. While this current situation really only affects streamers, their fans, and possibly their business partners, the messy world of copyright strikes has not only historically impacted how games are covered and shared but have even resulted in some games being removed from digital platforms or otherwise being drastically altered to comply with the thorny world of content rights and who controls them.

The post Twitch Streamers Feel Attacked by Confusing DMCA Takedowns appeared first on Den of Geek.

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