Twitch Will Now Mute Streams Featuring Copyrighted Music, and Why This Might Actually Be Good

8CN: Anyone who's used Youtube in the last couple years probably knows how this system works. If Youtube detects copyrighted music present in your video, the entire video is automatically muted. It would appear that Twitch.TV, the popular video game streaming site, is implementing a similar system. Before we get all up in arms about it, though, let's explore why this might be a good thing.

[admiralvic]

There is nothing good about this system and is easily one of my least favorite aspects of YT. While I can't speak for others, it sucks uploading a 30 - 40 minute long video and then something completely random (like the games opening) triggers it and my whole video gets muted, so I have to then remove the opening (usually they're pretty cool too =[) and then reupload and then hope it doesn't happen again. With Twitch it seems even more arbitrary given the general real time aspect of it. In most cases you can't control what songs will come on during a game (like say the ending song to Double Dragon, Portal or BattleBlock) and without warning it can negatively impact you.

The only solace I take in this choice is that it will negatively impact both the reception of Twitch going forward and force them to either change or someone new to rise up.

[Orpheo]

Someone already has, it's called U-Stream. From my time with it, U-Stream seems to have better picture quality and less lag than Twitch as well.

I'm glad us PlayStation gamers got support for this out-the-door. To the X-Box brethren, you have my sympathies.

[SaffronCurse]

Ustream is better.

[dasbeer88]

How was your comment posted one day and 13 hours ago while this opinion article was submitted to N4G 30 minutes ago?

[Neoninja]

I think that's when it was approved, but it was submitted a day and however many hours ago.

[Skate-AK]

Probably got approved 30 mins ago but got submitted over a day ago.

[admiralvic]

"How was your comment posted one day and 13 hours ago while this opinion article was submitted to N4G 30 minutes ago?"

It's based off how the two timers on N4G work. You see, when you submit an article to N4G it starts in the pending area with its own time. In the case of this article, that was 1 day 16+ hours ago and it waits to be approved. From there the article has 2 days to get approved or it's automatically failed. Once an article gets approved the counter resets to zero and it will appear on the front page and in some cases make it to the top 10 news articles of the day. After 24 hours passes, the article is removed from the top 10 (if it made it) and is moved to the top weekly articles (if it was that big of a deal). Finally after a week it's pretty much no longer relevant and more or less disappears.

TL;DR The time you're looking at is when the article was approved, not submitted.

[brich233]

On the top right thiers a section with pending articles, look for a number on the top right and click on it. Mine says 112 right now.

[d3nworth1]

Plus its free advertisement for the artist. You hear the once you want to hear it again you got to buy it. The whole idea is just idiotic. Its like you go to a friends house and watch them play a game but they have to mute the TV cuz the is copyright music in it.

[Kivespussi]

Even if the system would work, which it doesn't, it would be only bad. How does playing copyrighted music on background would affect the artist? It's free advertising!

[sashimi]

its over folks, slow death of twitch is happening.

[Software_Lover]

More like, slow death of freedom. Corporations are taking over...........Continuum.

[HacSawJimThugin]

Love that show...wish the lead actress could fill out that bodysuit more lol.

[Letros]

Hitbox.tv, Switch from Twitch

[Ghost_Nappa]

Article title is false, streams will not be muted. Only archived broadcasts are affected.

[Ghost_Nappa]

I challenge anyone to explain why you would disagree with my above statement.

[gamer7804]

lol this is n4g, there is no science behind disagrees.

(i would disagree with myself but i can't) :)

[BrianG]

Thank you Ghost, wanted to make sure someone else didn't post this first. But you are right.

Streamers are still allowed to stream copyrighted music, but they can not have it stored, which is why the VOD's are muted.

Article should have never been approved under that title.

[DragonKnight]

I am so sick and tired of how many people kiss big corporate a$$ the way this article and SO many youtubers do.

GOOGLE ISN'T GOING TO GIVE YOU MONEY FOR SIDING WITH THEM! THIS ISN'T A GOOD THING FOR ANYONE BUT THE RIAA!

[Soldierone]

Are you Vevo or a dumb music publisher? No? Then this isn't good for you at all.

[frankiebeans]

Just destroying everything twitch was nice job google.
Without a doubt someone will come up with a twitch competitor worth using very soon to capitalize on all the negative that is coming from the google buyout.

[Software_Lover]

......... then they will sell it to google for a big payday.

[BrianG]

You realize Twitch should have been doing this since the start right? Google isn't doing this. And a new version of Twitch would still have to abide by copyright laws, lest they want to be sued.

All that is being muted is the Video On Demand past broadcasts, not the actual stream.

Also Twitch was about live interaction and video games, not music.

[Hazmat13]

thanks google..... just stick with google fiber!

[Eonjay]

Whats next, NSA mutes calls with copyrighted music in the background.

[diesoft]

Maybe I'm missing the point of the article here but it sounds to me that you're ultimately okay with this implementation (albeit with some much-needed tweaking) simply because the video game medium and twitch has grown and, as you said, "Can run with the big kids now"?

That's not a compelling enough reason for me to be okay with this youtube-like system.

I liken the music industry being so upset with the digital age as when you try to smash the ocean with a hammer. Yeah, maybe something underneath your strike might get affected but ultimately the rest of the ocean just doesn't care and will still go on being an ocean, no matter how angry you are.

[kingPoS]

What's the point of having broadcasting functionally built in only to have the ingame music flagged and muted. It's like a car with no radio or cake... with no frosting.

It's unfulfilling, plain and simple.

Gateway MT6706 2008

[e-p-ayeaH]

Dont play copyrighted music then is that simple...

[herpderpasshole]

It's not.

[Ilovetheps5]

Most games have background music.

[diesoft]

Here's something that's simple for you: A streamer I watch is quite upset because someone in his house was playing the radio at a fairly low volume in another room. Barely audible to him or us (we couldn't even tell what was playing).

Guess who got hit with that crappy scanning software because of it? It ruined a gameplay moment he wanted to upload to youtube. Again, it was for barely audible whispers of music in the background.

But you're right, it's just simple. It's not like video games have music, right?

[e-p-ayeaH]

game soundtracks arent copyrighted last time i checked.

i can find most game osts on youtube.

[diesoft]

@e-p-ayeaH I guess we'll have to see how they handle licensed music in games. I'm always pessimistic so I think an overzealous scanning program might catch game music but hey...I'll be glad to be wrong.

[OiNioB]

This only applys to archived streams I thought...

[achmetha]

You're right, it is only for archived streams, or "VOD" as they are calling it.. It says right there on their blog, http://blog.twitch.tv/2014/...

This isn't to say that it WON'T make it's way to livestreams once that technology is developed.

From my understanding, the system they are using only works on pre-recorded content, and not on-the-fly content at this time.

[Psychotica]

It doesn't effect live broadcasts, that's all that matters to me. Too bad it wouldn't stop people from playing music instead of the sound from the game, that drives me nuts.

[Mikeyy]

Less freedom is always a bad thing.

That being said when I watch twitch.tv id much rather hear the game and the player speaking. The last thing I want to hear is terrible music blaring in the background.

I already have to mute these folks in my online games. Im here to watch a pro play starcraft 2, not listen to lil wayne rap about his gold chain.

[1nsaint]

title let me think live streams were now being muted

[TXIDarkAvenger]

If they don't make the change, most people will leave. Heard about people moving to azubu

[C-H-E-F]

Wait soooo if I'm playing gtav on the ps4 and live stream it you mean to tell me it will mute the playback on twitch when I listen to the radio in the car? That's dumb AF. (if there's any typos my apologies I'm on the phone and def. Not proof reading lol)

[DC777]

There is nothing good about it. Despite you raising doubt's in your title you raise no good points in your article.

Twitch is dead. Move on.

Google/Twitch. You thought you could pull another YouTube. Instead you destroyed it. Epic fail. Gamers aren't the same as people who will watch crap videos on when Joe Blow saw a monkey for 3.5 seconds in 2005.