Creators in the Twitch community have been blindsided multiple times this year by an old foe, a recurring problem with livestreaming that's reared its head the most recently. Every year, it seems, there's a widespread purge of clips and VODs on the livestreaming platform as DMCA copyright claims are filed against streamers. This year in particular has been especially problematic for content creators, as numerous clips and VODs (some of which are several years old) are receiving DMCA strikes. There's a reason why streamers have affectionately referred to the issue with phrases like the DMCA "bloodbath" or "purge" of content on Twitch.
After some confusing communication and a lack of official statements, Twitch finally broke its silence on the DMCA situation this month. While the post goes on at length about the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and what it protects, there's not much information provided on possible solutions on the matter. According to Twitch, record labels only recently issued thousands of DMCA strikes in bulk, whereas before very few strikes were issued each year. Streamers are rightfully frustrated and worried about their content receiving DMCA strikes, whether it was streamed back in 2017 or streamed just yesterday.
Twitch's Official Statement on DMCA Regulation
In a relatively unprecedented move, Twitch put out a long-form statement regarding the DMCA issues on the platform. Twitch attempts to appeal to the frustrations of its creators, stating that issues with copyright strikes are "completely justified." The company outlined its process for adhering to DMCA guidelines, noting that it is the one to issue strikes, track complaints, and ultimately ban repeat offenders who continue to play copywritten material on Twitch. Interestingly enough, according to Twitch's analysis, more than 99% of the DMCA notifications were for music tracks playing in the background of streams, not necessarily from games themselves.
So, in response to the many thousands of copyright strikes, Twitch offered up two suggestions: "1) if you play recorded music on your stream, you need to stop doing that and 2) if you haven’t already, you should review your historical VODs and Clips that may have music in them and delete any archives that might." Of course, this is after Twitch already went through on the back-end and scrapped several VODs and Clips with copyright strikes. That inevitably led to the massive confusion from several streamers whose VODs/Clips were deleted, with the only vague notice being "your channel was subject to one or more of these DMCA takedown notifications."
How Streamers Can Protect Themselves Currently
Previously, these DMCA notifications from Twitch were bookended by encouraging streamers to "learn about copyright law." Twitch later acknowledges in the statement that the deletion of VODs/Clips on their behalf was not the right solution and apologized, but hasn't offered up any alternatives other than nuking VODs. Now, in this new reality of massive DMCA crackdowns, the onus is on the streamers themselves to deal with copyright issues.
At the moment, streamers have a few options on what they can do with specific DMCA strikes: Utilize royalty free or Twitch licensed options (Soundtrack by Twitch, Soundstripe, Monstercat Gold, Chillhop, Epidemic Sound, and NCS), or simply do not use any recorded music for background noise during streams. Eschewing the use of music entirely is the nuclear option if streamers are willing to do it, but for right now the only alternative is license-free or Twitch-licensed music only. Otherwise streamers will run the risk of DMCA strikes from record companies, even if mileage may vary between which record companies are more aggressive in tagging copyright.
Games with licensed music are where things get a little tricky. Most notably with games like Grand Theft Auto 5, and soon a similar issue may occur with Cyberpunk 2077, these games' soundtracks all feature licensed music from artists. Unfortunately, just because that music is in-game doesn't mean its free to stream on Twitch without worry of copyright strikes. If players are willing to go the extra mile, they can search through the game's EULA (End User License Agreement, typically several pages of text) if streaming rights are verified for the licensed in-game music. Otherwise, licensed game audio needs to be turned off, which is usually the case with game's EULAs.
The Reality of the DMCA Situation on Twitch
Each one of these solutions are drastic, but the unfortunate reality of the situation is that Twitch is not providing alternatives. These systems have been in place for a while, and since the record companies are only now deciding to crack down on copyright, Twitch has not handled the situation as well as it could. Streamers should've had less destructive means to protect themselves from unintentional copyright infringement. The fact that streamers could've been breaking copyright laws for years without any knowledge or warning is not on the fault of content creators, but Twitch for not having an infrastructure in place to inform and protect streamers from this.
A streamer should not have to "do a ctrl+f" to search for streaming permissions for copyrighted music in games. Even if there potentially is copyrighted content in these streams, deletion of VODs and Clips should not be the only option for streamers to avoid DMCA strikes. Streamers should also always have the capability of reviewing DMCA strikes if they feel content was flagged incorrectly, and should be able to submit a counter notification. Broadcasting and infringing on an artist's work is understandably illegal and can be punished by law, but it's not like most streamers are leaving up a blank Spotify stream with licensed music blatantly playing.