Twitch, the popular platform for streaming games, has explained the vigorous copyright crackdown it made last month. The platform said that it received thousands of copyright notices from record labels last month, all targeting the users’ background music in their streams and archives from the past. Further, Twitch also apologized for not providing adequate tools to handle such notices.
Twitch Apologizes to Streamers
After being acquired by Amazon in 2014, Twitch has grown to be the largest platform for game streamers than any other. The platform was accused of the bulk takedown of streams in their users’ accounts last month, and it came forward to explain now.
In a blog post, Twitch said that it had received thousands of copyright notices from various record labels last month, all pointing at the background music of users streams.
Twitch, in return, has sent warning e-mail notifications to all concerned steamers, asking them to remove those videos. While some have complied, many have complained of not providing adequate details on why they were asked to do so.
Users were supposed to know which part of their streams had the infringing music and whether they can revert to the notice or not.
While apologizing for not giving them more details in the warning notices, Twitch suggested that users not use copyrighted materials in their streams. Also, they better be using such copyrighted music oy after obtaining relevant approvals from the actual rights owners. While using copyrighted music without permission is illegal, Twitch also warned about using the in-game music while streaming.
Some games wouldn’t allow users to stream their in-game music, which will be mentioned in their EULA terms when opening the game.
At last, Twitch talked about developing tools to let users handle the music in their future streams, and also to set a proper system to raise and resolve any warning notices received. Check more on Twitch’s FAQ and User Forums.
