Alarmingly, more and more Twitch streamers are raising concerns over permanent ban threats because of copyrighted music.
After the platform updated its terms of service, many popular stars are getting DMCA strikes and suspensions such as Macaiyla and JakenbakeLive who were given not only strikes, but also a 24-hour suspension.
Using a wrong piece of video or audio can land your channel a copyright strike. As a result, your videos can be demonetized and your channel may also be taken down— in a worst case scenario.
The issue didn’t affect Twitch streamers that much, up until the Amazon-owned live streaming platform updated their Terms of Service in regards to music.
Updated Terms of Service
The updated Terms of Service makes it clear what the platform expects from its roster of streamers.
The use of any copyrighted material, without correct license or permission, is an action that can land you sanctions.
The new Twitch music guidelines read:
“As a company committed to supporting creators, we respect, and ask our users to respect the intellectual property of those who make music, and those won or control music rights.”
It also lists the types of music permitted and not permitted for use. Streamers are advised against playing any music from sources they do not have the license for.
Some music content that aren’t advisable for use in Twitch streams or VODs are as follows: radio-style music listening show, DJ set, karaoke performance, lip sync performance, visual music depiction, and cover song performance.
Those who will not abide by the guidelines may land themselves a takedown notice.
Further punishments such as outright bands or suspensions may also be considered for repeating offenders.
The platform has already been enforcing the updated copyright law more seriously, and a number of streamers have been hit with takedown notices and suspensions over the past weeks.
Controversial?
What makes the matter a little controversial is how some streamers get strikes over clips that are three years old. Some also say they have been handed notices by mistake.
These DMCA strikes push creators to be worried over the fate of their channels.
There are threats of permanent bans, which is truly worrisome to every content creator on the platform. Three DMCA strikes will result in a channel being permanently deleted.
Fuslie, a popular Twitch streamer, recently spoke about how stressful it has been for her to deal with a DMCA notice in a Twitter thread:
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
— fuslie (@fuslie) June 7, 2020
“I feel so helpless right now. I’ve built this channel up for 5 years and to potentially lose it all so fast to something like this would be devastating.”
“This is an issue way bigger than me. Content creators aren’t being informed by Twitch on the proper steps to protect themselves from this happening, and there has to be a better to handle this than suddenly striking our accounts and banning us out of nowhere. ”
As of writing, Twitch automatically mutes any copyrighted audio and video within VODs but this does not include muting clips.
It has been a struggle for many creators to mass delete thousands of clips, but Twitch is already currently working on implementing an easier way to do so.
With these abrupt changes, future Twitch streams and clips may be a whole lot quieter!
Since streamers are afraid of being suspended or getting penalties, they might have to stay away from playing any music off Spotify, iTunes, or YouTube.
