How Twitch's new copyright policy was gravely mishandled

A lot of conversation, along with grinding and gnashing of teeth, happened yesterday following Twitch's series of announcements. The one that caused the most stir was the decision to flag archived videos for copyrighted audio content, essentially banishing those clips into silence. Some people were outraged and began crying out that this was exactly what they feared from the rumored YouTube acquisition. Others pointed out that one simply can't take clips that aren't theirs and embed it over their gameplay clips.

[gamerlive]

Very good opinion piece.

[Ashlen]

This is bad, but the people who really responsible are all the people who allowed the DMCA to be enacted in the way it is in the first place.

If people are really bothered they should stand up and fight for changes to this over arcing law.

[lonelyplayer]

Sorry to say but twitch is almost dead. Ads, copyright, and bad customer service will finish it.

[SpiralTear]

The Twitch robots are silencing us. We have no mouths...and we must scream.

Seriously, though, Twitch implemented a way to block copyrighted music, but introduced it without any way to challenge the claims. All of the mistakenly blocked music is impossible to get back without any way to prove legality by the users. We're helpless to these problems. It's a mess.

I also heard that Twitch's own Twitch channel had its music blocked by the new copyright bots. If that's really true, then the problem doesn't need anymore explaining. It's doesn't get any simpler. These new policies are ruining Twitch.

[OrangePowerz]

I don't think they are on the verge to get the deal done, they already have the deal done. Why else would they change otherwise to the same stupid system that Youtube has already in place?

[DarthJay]

Copyrighted music. Copyrighted music. Copyrighted music. Copyrighted music. Copyrighted music.

I'm repeating myself because I don't know how people aren't grasping the concept. If you don't own copyright on the music, you don't get to pick how it is used. Feel lucky they aren't being forced to block it from the live streams, because I guarantee that is next on the docket from the copyright holders.

Getting mad at Twitch is useless, because if people switch to another streaming site, that site will ultimately face the same issues.

The problem is the acceptance of the practice. The acceptance of piracy. The acceptance of ignorance.

This is ignorance. Unless you wrote and performed the song, chances are you have zero argument for holding copyright. Even in game music that is getting flagged. Buying the game doesn't give you the right to it. I've had in game music flagged before on Youtube and it sucks. But I have absolutely zero argument for ownership, because I flat out don't.

As Twitch gained more popularity and traffic, they also gained more scrutiny. They got away with stuff they shouldn't have for a long time. It's just like when people used to stream sporting events on Justin.TV when it was getting started, or Ustream. They got popular and ultimately disappeared. Are they terrible companies because I could no longer watch UFC pay per views there for free? No. UFC had a right to block it.

Sorry. I don't see the problem. At all. It was a fun ride. Now streamers have to be responsible and not use music they aren't supposed to use. OH NO. The sky is falling...

[Ashlen]

Those are the words of a tool.

[Arty84]

why is he a tool? all he did was tell the hard truth people got comfortable doing whatever they want with someone else intellectual PROPERTY as in they own and you don't
what happens if you create something profitable and I duplicate it and make money off of it without giving you compensation for your effort in development

[Jihaad_cpt]

Spoken like true person who does not take responsibility for their actions. He is only stating mostly facts and his opinion

[gamer7804]

they need to implement this technology in cars, that way if you play your music too loud that other cars can hear it, it gets muted or turned back down. That way all those people who haven't paid for the song won't get to hear it.

Will be interesting to see how games with radio-like soundtracks. Playing burnout with the car radio on then in your records there is no audio at all.

[Arty84]

"they need to implement this technology in cars, that way if you play your music too loud that other cars can hear it, it gets muted or turned back down. That way all those people who haven't paid for the song won't get to hear it"

it doesn't matter if they haven't paid to hear a song it matters if they are paying you for the song, that you are making money off the music not the music maker

[ichizon]

@Arturo84:
You are wrong. The one thing they usually care about is that they aren't getting paid for having the song played. Say, you can't make a website that costs you money and time to maintain, and host music that you don't have the rights to copy on it. Even if there's nothing that earns you money on that site.

The problem at hand is that the music is only a part of the video. When a streamer is playing games, people are there to watch the streamer and the game, not to listen to the music. On YouTube, where royalties are actually moved to the claiming party, they are actually earning money of the video creator's work in some cases.

I'm not saying the streamers are in their right. I don't have much sympathy for blatantly playing copyrighted background music, but there are two major issues related to the current system:
* Music from the games being played gets flagged for various reasons.
* The flag takes a 30 minute block of the VoD, even if the offending music was only being played for 30 seconds.

[ichizon]

Yes, if you don't own the rights to something, Twitch can remove it in compliance with laws they must abide to.

However, as the article clearly states, as a video game streaming site, there are huge issues with this. Many games include soundtracks from popular music, or original music that can be claimed by the game's creator. It's currently a grey zone, the way many people see it. The music is just there, but not what we are watching the stream for.

On top of that, there are false-positives, claims on stuff that you've bought the rights to and claims by people that don't have the rights to something. On YouTube, all of these examples have hit major channels, causing a huge headache for the video owner in order to reclaim the video, since YouTube automatically sides with the one who made a claim.

Even with proof at hand, it can take a long while to reclaim a video, and if it was taken down completely during the dispute, they video owner already lost a lot of revenue which they won't get compensated for.

[DarkBlood]

So basically only corporations can make videos? Gotcha

[Pintheshadows]

I have a feeling that 1 bil was an appeasement payment to the owners of Twitch.

'Here is tons of money so you don't feel so bad about us gutting your baby'.

[XtraTrstrL]

Guess it's time to go to Ustream, until they get hit.