Twitch Streamers Are Getting Inudated With Copyright Claims For Old Clips

In the last few days, Twitch Streamers have experienced a “sudden influx” of DMCA takedown requests against old clips, some as early as 2017. The notices usually concern music playing in the background, and can eventually lead to a permanent ban. Twitch’s official response suggests deleting the old clips, but that’s not as easy as it sounds.

📢 This week, we've had a sudden influx of DMCA takedown requests for clips with background music from 2017-19. If you’re unsure about rights to audio in past streams, we advise removing those clips. We know many of you have large archives, and we're working to make this easier.

— Twitch Support (@TwitchSupport) June 8, 2020

Deleting a Twitch clip is slow and laborious. Under normal circumstances, that would be fine, but what happens when you suddenly need to remove a large number of old streams? That’s what Twitch streamers are faced with, as they often have thousands of clips and can only delete a handful at a time.

Any other streamers get hit with some copyright stuff recently? The heckkkkkkk we supposed to do? 🙁

I can't go through 100,000 clips and delete anything that has some music in it.
Scary.

If things continue this way doesn't that mean 90% of the streamers on Twitch are donezo? pic.twitter.com/ZXywc9PznV

— Jake'n'Bake @ Thailand 🇹🇭 (@jakenbakeLIVE) June 7, 2020

It’s not uncommon for streamers to have music in the background playing, often from the game itself. Would you want to watch a Twitch Streamer play a rhythm game like Beat Saber without the music? But streamers aren’t likely to have the necessary funds to fight for fair use versus copyright or pay for streaming rights. And DMCA requests don’t leave much room to sort those details.

I’ve been issued 2 copyright strikes on my channel (both from clips over a year old) in the past week and told that if they find one more violation in my clips, my twitch account will be permabanned. (1/4) pic.twitter.com/y8pft3spdq

— leslie (@fuslie) June 7, 2020

After all, DMCA requests can lead to strikes, and earning three strikes lands you a permanent ban from Twitch’s service. That’s what Twitch streamer Fuslie tweeted about when she received DMCA request takedown notices from Twitch. When she contacted the service, it recommended she delete her old clips—the product of hard work and good memories.

And that’s what the service is recommending everyone do for the first part. Twitch says it’s the first time the service has received mass DMCA requests. The company also promises to make deleting old streams easier.

Twitch streamers can, of course, license background music that should avoid DMCA requests. However, if they want to stream games known explicitly for music, like Dance Central, they may think twice.

via Evening Standard