Twitch emailed many partnered streamers that their channels have received DMCA takedown notices.

JumbiePrime · Oct 20, 2020

Some need to understand that Twitch HAS to do this to keep their safe harbor status or whatever it's called . For those that don't know that means that Youtube/Twitch are not held responsible for what is put on their site initially but they do have to nuke it almost instantly if claim is made and they do get over zealous with it as almost any prominent youtuber can tell you their are fake companies that will do this for whatever reason or even other youtubers.

What is scary is if it is in game music like GTA or even NBA 2k. I can see those getting hit . Even scarier are games that don't have popular music in it like Bethesda games . I think it was them that had something on their site that it's okay , even very welcomed that you stream their games, just be wary of assets they don't own which I'm guessing is the music Probably fallout games but still

Tecnniqe · Oct 20, 2020

I guess if they won't tell you who fucked you and just delete your videos anyways you might as well just go with the flow and up the volume to the max.

delete12345 · Oct 20, 2020

Tecnniqe said:
I guess if they won't tell you who fucked you and just delete your videos anyways you might as well just go with the flow and up the volume to the max.

And then you get repeated violations and a ban to your channel, (temporary to permanent).

Tovarisc · Oct 20, 2020

Tecnniqe said:
I guess if they won't tell you who fucked you and just delete your videos anyways you might as well just go with the flow and up the volume to the max.

delete12345 said:
And then you get repeated violations and a ban to your channel, (temporary to permanent).

3 strikes and Twitch perma bans your channel.

Tecnniqe · Oct 20, 2020

Tovarisc said:
3 strikes and Twitch perma bans your channel.

3 strikes and you won't even get to know anything and not even a chance to dispute?
May the Norse gods have mercy upon thy streamers

delete12345 · Oct 20, 2020

Tovarisc said:
3 strikes and Twitch perma bans your channel.

Wait, no temp bans in between? That's pretty strict.

Gloomz · Oct 20, 2020

delete12345 said:
Wait, no temp bans in between?

Nope, and they don't tell you what music it was, what clip it was or who filed the notice.

JumbiePrime · Oct 20, 2020

Armadilo said:
From my time watching streamers, it's usually streamers playing copyrighted music over the game, so basically they are playing their Spotify playlist while they have their commentary

I was going to add this to . Since the Call of Duty beta I've been watching a lot of new streamers on that side and quite a few of them have music playing over the game . Even the spotify plugin in the corner to show you what song . This same thing happened a few months ago and I cannot believe that they would still put music over their streams especially if they're a bigger streamer like Nick mercs .

Castor · Oct 20, 2020

Ohh man I'm waiting for the news that some of these claims are for game music.

AlexBasch · Oct 20, 2020

I have seen streamers playing Rock Band 4 and the Just Dance series. Think that would trigger the DMCA/music copyright thing? They shouldn't allow those games to be played on the platform if that's the case (with the side effect of getting dunked on for doing so, of course).

Tovarisc · Oct 20, 2020

Tecnniqe said:
3 strikes and you won't even get to know anything and not even a chance to dispute?
May the Norse gods have mercy upon thy streamers

delete12345 said:
Wait, no temp bans in between? That's pretty strict.

Yep.

3 strikes and you are out. No disputing it, no temps, no telling why you were stricken down etc.

It's why so many streamers were shitting themselves and aging years in span of days when Twitch went around with strike hammer first time. It was so sudden and so little info was available to partners.

Edit: YouTube has same "3 strikes and out" policy, BUT they let you dispute all the claims

AlexBasch · Oct 20, 2020

BTW, didn't a band got hit by a DMCA notice by playing their own songs in a stream? I recall reading that a few weeks ago.

delete12345 · Oct 20, 2020

dishonestjest said:
Nope, and they don't tell you what music it was, what clip it was or who filed the notice.

In my opinion, DMCA laws need to close off a loophole and state it's a mandatory obligation to notify the person who is filed against, what offending material was used and at what timestamp it occurred when the DMCA filing was submitted.

JumbiePrime · Oct 20, 2020

Shhheeeiiittt... Lately I've been getting 20+ views on my saved twitch streams and I've been wondering why. When I'm streaming I'm happy to just have 5 live viewers let alone 20 watching after the fact. Welp, time to go nuke my entire backlog!!!

Kneefoil · Oct 20, 2020

If it was just music, you'd think that just muting that section would be enough. It's what Twitch usually does, anyway.

AlexBasch said:
BTW, didn't a band got hit by a DMCA notice by playing their own songs in a stream? I recall reading that a few weeks ago.

It happens. Music distributors often automatically put tracks on lists that bots reference to copyright claim, unless the artists specifically request otherwise.

JumbiePrime · Oct 20, 2020

Kneefoil said:
If it was just music, you'd think that just muting that section would be enough. It's what Twitch usually does, anyway.

It happens. Music distributors often automatically put tracks on lists that bots reference to copyright claim, unless the artists specifically request otherwise.

Thing is it doesn't always catch everything . I've had a song muted on my stream one time but then got through another . It seems if it's played relatively low what ever they are using to detect it has problems doing so

Kaeden · Oct 22, 2020

Well DansGaming deleted his last 10 years worth of VODs on Twitch. Terrible that this had to happen but it seems like the uncertainty about him potentially being suspended if Twitch didn't catch any and then being DMCA'd on his own forced his hand. And I'm really surprised there isn't an easy way for him to backup those vids unless at the end of the day they belong to Twitch and not him.

Hagi · Oct 22, 2020

Kadin said:
Well DansGaming deleted his last 10 years worth of VODs on Twitch. Terrible that this had to happen but it seems like the uncertainty about him potentially being suspended if Twitch didn't catch any and then being DMCA'd on his own forced his hand. And I'm really surprised there isn't an easy way for him to backup those vids unless at the end of the day they belong to Twitch and not him.

A lot of streamers get help from their community to archive their VOD's I assume he could have some kind of back up. It is pretty ridiculous that it's come down to this, bloody Facebook look after their streamers better at this point.

edit: shit guess he had too much to archive that really sucks. Lirik will be in the same situation he still had all of his VOD's from when he started as well :(

Tovarisc · Oct 22, 2020

Kadin said:
Well DansGaming deleted his last 10 years worth of VODs on Twitch. Terrible that this had to happen but it seems like the uncertainty about him potentially being suspended if Twitch didn't catch any and then being DMCA'd on his own forced his hand. And I'm really surprised there isn't an easy way for him to backup those vids unless at the end of the day they belong to Twitch and not him.

And he isn't alone. A lot longtimers are erasing all their history on Twitch.

Kaeden · Oct 22, 2020

Hagi said:
A lot of streamers get help from their community to archive their VOD's I assume he could have some kind of back up. It is pretty ridiculous that it's come down to this, bloody Facebook look after their streamers better at this point.

Yeah sadly he said it would have taken way too long at this point.

Hagi · Oct 22, 2020

Yeah I noticed that it's pretty sad :(

dex3108 · Oct 22, 2020

Meanwhile on developer side

Deleted member 34714 · Oct 22, 2020

What happened in the last DMCA attack where someone went on a spree digging through old clips? How was that resolved that makes this one different?

Kaeden · Oct 22, 2020

dex3108 said:
Meanwhile on developer side

I'm not sure I follow the 'they're streaming games they didn't pay for as well' part of his response, what does that mean that I'm missing?

Duxxy3 · Oct 22, 2020

dex3108 said:
Meanwhile on developer side

Among Us would still be a dead game if this was the case. A lot of games take off because of Twitch streamers.

turbobrick · Oct 22, 2020

Hagi said:
A lot of streamers get help from their community to archive their VOD's I assume he could have some kind of back up. It is pretty ridiculous that it's come down to this, bloody Facebook look after their streamers better at this point.

edit: shit guess he had too much to archive that really sucks. Lirik will be in the same situation he still had all of his VOD's from when he started as well :(

Streamers I watch let everyone know to save anything they want before it got deleted, which is nice to give people a heads up.

dex3108 said:
Meanwhile on developer side

I mean, clearly the developers don't see it this way otherwise they wouldn't be paying large streamers to play their new game. They know that the exposure from streaming is good for business.

Dineren · Oct 22, 2020

Kadin said:
I'm not sure I follow the 'they're streaming games they didn't pay for as well' part of his response, what does that mean that I'm missing?

He thinks streamers should have to license games for streaming purposes apparently.

dex3108 · Oct 22, 2020

Kadin said:
I'm not sure I follow the 'they're streaming games they didn't pay for as well' part of his response, what does that mean that I'm missing?

Streamers often get free games from publishers or partners.

Kaeden · Oct 22, 2020

dex3108 said:
Streamers often get free games from publishers or partners.

Yeah this is what I assumed he meant, but that's definitely not how it works (get the games free) for most who stream games. I guess I read the remark as something all streamers need to be aware for all the games they play, free or not.

Nephtes · Oct 22, 2020

I'm sorry, hahahahahaha oh mannnn...
The corporate grunt that got to write this line:

"we are issuing you a one time warning to give you a chance to learn about copyright law"

So good.
I bet they called in a coworker "Hey Bob! Bob! Come check this out!! Haha! I just wrote a blast email to a ton of Gen Y'ers telling them they need to research copyright law!"

Tovarisc · Oct 22, 2020

Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park was on DroppedFrames yesterday. They touched on all of this and Shinoda went full teacher mode for half an hour. Some interesting perspective and insight from actual music industry insider on all of this and why this is such cluster. They also touch on what that tweet from dev implies at, "What if streamers need to start purchasing rights to games?"

If embed doesn't work hit the link below for right time on VOD.

Dropped Frames - Week 253 - Mr. Shinoda, I Have a Question (Part 2)

Check us out where podcasts are available: https://droppedfram.esThe DMCA warnings are hitting Twitch streamers hard this week and we get right in to it. The...

youtu.be

VexationStation · Oct 22, 2020

Kadin said:
Yeah sadly he said it would have taken way too long at this point.

The sad part is that it wouldn't with the right technical know how, streamers just don't have that (and it seems all of the various agencies they contract out to don't either), and Twitch doesn't appear interested in providing them the proper tools.

Rent EC2 instance(s) with large EBS->parallel download->upload to S3 glacier (and given they were probably already infrequent storage somewhere, Twitch should have been able to provide tooling)->deal with later

Deleted member 20831 · Oct 22, 2020

This can affect a certain game promotion and purchase by small percentage, if they have music from a record label.

As twitch is pretty good platform to promote games.

Duxxy3 · Oct 22, 2020

VexationStation said:
The sad part is that it wouldn't with the right technical know how, streamers just don't have that (and it seems all of the various agencies they contract out to don't either), and Twitch doesn't appear interested in providing them the proper tools.

Rent EC2 instance(s) with large EBS->parallel download->upload to S3 glacier (and given they were probably already infrequent storage somewhere, Twitch should have been able to provide tooling)->deal with later

That seemed like a pretty easy way for Amazon to make some money. Charge streamers for their own VOD's. A lot of them would do it too, either for nostalgia or other reasons.

Bear · Oct 22, 2020

I have a hard time blaming a company for taking action on something like this. Their hand is being forced by an outside authority that has serious legal implications if they weren't to take action.

Kaeden · Oct 22, 2020

Bear said:
I have a hard time blaming a company for taking action on something like this. Their hand is being forced by an outside authority that has serious legal implications if they weren't to take action.

After doing more research on this I can see that Twitch was kinda forced to do it this extreme because the backlog of sudden takedown notices were just too large to be handled in a quick way according to the Unsafe Harbor provision within the DMCA. I guess what I don't understand, or maybe just haven't read, is why does Twitch have to do this 3 strikes and then you're banned for all past VODs that might get striked? It seems like they should, and you'd hope they would want to, not go to that extreme and just do that going forward.

Alavard · Oct 22, 2020

Bear said:
I have a hard time blaming a company for taking action on something like this. Their hand is being forced by an outside authority that has serious legal implications if they weren't to take action.

If Twitch had enough information to delete the problematic VODs, they had enough information to tell people which ones they were.

Bear · Oct 22, 2020

Kadin said:
After doing more research on this I can see that Twitch was kinda forced to do it this extreme because the backlog of sudden takedown notices were just too large to be handled in a quick way according to the Unsafe Harbor provision within the DMCA. I guess what I don't understand, or maybe just haven't read, is why does Twitch have to do this 3 strikes and then you're banned for all past VODs that might get striked? It seems like they should, and you'd hope they would want to, not go to that extreme and just do that going forward.

Yeah, that's fair criticism and what I also think about it.

Dreams-Visions · Oct 22, 2020

I feel like this subject comes up every few months.

Is there a reason that streamers continue to go back to playing copyrighted music on their streams? Every time this happens, everyone starts playing royalty-free music or otherwise music they got permission to play. Then over time they slowly start going back to copyrighted music. Is someone at Twitch telling them it's safe to go back to copyrighted music only for them to be surprised by bad news like this? Is there a reason they haven't gone through VODs already? The last time something like this happened, it seemed pretty dire and people were taking it seriously. Were they not?

Dyle · Oct 22, 2020

Twitch as the platform holder can and should do more rather than shifting everything onto their users. The way Twitch handles DMCA takedowns is so bad that it somehow manages to make Youtube's system look acceptable.

Tovarisc · Oct 22, 2020

Dreams-Visions said:
I feel like this subject comes up every few months.

Is there a reason that streamers continue to go back to playing copyrighted music on their streams? Every time this happens, everyone starts playing royalty-free music or otherwise music they got permission to play. Then over time they slowly start going back to copyrighted music. Is someone at Twitch telling them it's safe to go back to copyrighted music only for them to be surprised by bad news like this? Is there a reason they haven't gone through VODs already? The last time something like this happened, it seemed pretty dire and people were taking it seriously. Were they not?

Streamers like Dan and CohhCarnage avoid copyrighted music like it's black plague itself.

They got both got slapped with this warning email of "If you don't scrub we will be striking you next Friday", neither have NO clue what triggered being warned.

Kaeden · Oct 22, 2020

Dreams-Visions said:
I feel like this subject comes up every few months.

Is there a reason that streamers continue to go back to playing copyrighted music on their streams? Every time this happens, everyone starts playing royalty-free music or otherwise music they got permission to play. Then over time they slowly start going back to copyrighted music. Is someone at Twitch telling them it's safe to go back to copyrighted music only for them to be surprised by bad news like this? Is there a reason they haven't gone through VODs already? The last time something like this happened, it seemed pretty dire and people were taking it seriously. Were they not?

The interesting thing about this, and I can only use DansGaming as a reference, is he never plays music on his streams. I can't state that it's like that 100% of the time because I haven't watched them all, but the majority is just him talking and playing games. So it seems that the DMCAs can also get flagged from music within the game themselves, right? Which boggles my mind completely.

But to your point, yeah this would tell me if I was a streamer, absolutely NO music whatsoever during a stream. Just isn't worth the risk. If they choose to get lax with that and it happens again, as shitty as it is, I can see why Twitch would take action.

Uhyve · Oct 22, 2020

dex3108 said:
Meanwhile on developer side

I almost entirely disagree with the guy but he's clearly taking about paying for a licence to stream. Legally speaking, buying a game doesn't give you a right to stream it, anymore than buying an music album would give you a right to stream it. No EULA clause required.

I doubt any publisher would do anything about it though. They understand the benefits, that's why they pay streamers to play their games. And looking at how good streamers are at mobilizing against any perceived threat (see the recent ad changes), you just know they'd completely cut off the first publisher to try this and they'd try to bring their fanbases along for the ride.

Also, Just Chatting is the most popular category on Twitch. There's a reason for that.

Edit: Meant to post this in the dedicated thread, oops.

turbobrick · Oct 22, 2020

Dreams-Visions said:
I feel like this subject comes up every few months.

Is there a reason that streamers continue to go back to playing copyrighted music on their streams? Every time this happens, everyone starts playing royalty-free music or otherwise music they got permission to play. Then over time they slowly start going back to copyrighted music. Is someone at Twitch telling them it's safe to go back to copyrighted music only for them to be surprised by bad news like this? Is there a reason they haven't gone through VODs already? The last time something like this happened, it seemed pretty dire and people were taking it seriously. Were they not?

If you're a big streamer, or have been streaming a lot time, there's way too many to go through. Not every streamer has a ton of VODs still up on their channel, but clips are also a target of this. Even a mid size streamer may have thousands of clips. Like if you happened to play copyrighted music 4 years ago, and it ended up getting clipped, it would be hard for a streamer to even know that clip exists on their channel. Music that's in games counts as well if its copyrighted.

Also, tbf if you're streaming for 10-12 hours a day, listening to good music can be helpful. Though if they were smart they'd set their audio up so the music is played only in their headphones and not captured by OBS.

Deleted member 43084 · Oct 22, 2020

Uhyve said:
Legally speaking, buying a game doesn't give you a right to stream it, anymore than buying an music album would give you a right to stream it.

Unlike music streaming, the long-term ROI of the free publicity from user streaming is much higher than the money earned from banning streaming and controlling publicity. In most cases, streaming does not cannibalize sales (there are theoretical exceptions for story-driven games).

The argument is shortsighted, at best, and a very bad argument to make as a director.

Lord Arcadio · Oct 22, 2020

Kadin said:
The interesting thing about this, and I can only use DansGaming as a reference, is he never plays music on his streams. I can't state that it's like that 100% of the time because I haven't watched them all, but the majority is just him talking and playing games. So it seems that the DMCAs can also get flagged from music within the game themselves, right? Which boggles my mind completely.

But to your point, yeah this would tell me if I was a streamer, absolutely NO music whatsoever during a stream. Just isn't worth the risk. If they choose to get lax with that and it happens again, as shitty as it is, I can see why Twitch would take action.

GTA, Just Dance, Beat Saber, Osu, etc. are notorious for this. Streamers should not play those (in GTA's case, they need to turn off the radio when they get into a car ASAP).

Jebusman · Oct 22, 2020

Dreams-Visions said:
I feel like this subject comes up every few months.

Is there a reason that streamers continue to go back to playing copyrighted music on their streams? Every time this happens, everyone starts playing royalty-free music or otherwise music they got permission to play. Then over time they slowly start going back to copyrighted music. Is someone at Twitch telling them it's safe to go back to copyrighted music only for them to be surprised by bad news like this? Is there a reason they haven't gone through VODs already? The last time something like this happened, it seemed pretty dire and people were taking it seriously. Were they not?

The warnings themselves did not describe what exactly the streamers were doing that could potentially be in violation. There's no way to actually know what you might have let slip through despite how vigilant you might have been in trying to avoid it.

Not to mention that because Twitch is accepting these DMCA claims at face value without allowing you to see or contest it, it's possible a company is sending knowingly false claims to content you KNOW you either have the license for, or is royalty free, and you would never be able to fight it. One of the cornerstones of the DMCA process is the ability to file a counter notice. If Twitch isn't going to put in the effort to let their users do so, I don't see how any streamer going forward can trust broadcasting anything other than their own voice.

Alpheus · Oct 22, 2020

And here I was considering streaming every now and then once I've moved. But now I'm unsure wtf are even the rules of the road wrt this kinda stuff.

kai3345 · Oct 22, 2020

dex3108 said:
Meanwhile on developer side

haha what

ChuckXL · Oct 22, 2020

dex3108 said:
Meanwhile on developer side

Music is one thing. A totally separate thing. Paying game developers and publishers to stream their games though? Holy shit. 2020 has had some hot takes, but this one from Stadia boy is something else.

Twitch emailed many partnered streamers that their channels have received DMCA takedown notices.

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