With streaming service Twitch having to reassess its DMCA rules in recent years, many streamers have been hit by a series of copyright strikes pertaining to music played in the background of their broadcasts. To circumvent these problems, Twitch released a supposedly copyright-free music platform called Soundtrack, which despite claims of being 'safe' for streamers to use to listen to music, has seen Twitch partner Kevin Martin receive a copyright strike against his account.
The way in which Twitch handles its DMCA claims has had to change due to receiving an unprecedented amount of copyright claims from major record labels in the last few years. According to a statement from Twitch, the website went from receiving "fewer than 50 music-related DMCA notifications each year" to being hit with thousands "per week." This staggering increase in copyright claims meant that Twitch has forced streamers to stop playing music in the background of their streams, much to the chagrin of the site's users.
Martin, a professional poker player and Twitch streamer, has recently fallen victim to a slightly more confusing aspect of Twitch's DMCA policy, receiving a copyright strike on a song that was deemed 'safe' by the company themselves. Martin was able to scour his VODs to discover that the song that caused his copyright strike was "Better Together" by James Hayden, a song that appears on Twitch's own Soundtrack app. The streamer was also surprised by the strongly-worded message sent, without any other communication, by Twitch staff, that simply read "You have 2 copyright strikes. If you accumulate 3 copyright strikes, your account will be terminated."
While this may seem like an egregious error on Twitch's part, it is actually down to Martin being unaware of some important information regarding Twitch's new DMCA policy. While streamers are allowed to utilize Twitch's new Soundtrack app to play music in the background of their livestreams, the music is still subject to copyright when it is playing in the background of a VOD. This means that while Martin was safe to play the track while he was actually live, as soon as the recording of that stream hit Twitch, a copyright claim was legally allowed to be made against it.
This isn't the first time that Twitch's DMCA rules have caused drama, with many streamers being shocked by the severity of Twitch's DMCA ban waves. In this case, it can be argued that the fault lies with Kevin Martin, who should have perhaps read the fine print regarding the playing of music on his stream, however, the language on Twitch's soundtrack app certainly appears unambiguous when it calls itself a "rights cleared music tool designed for Twitch creators." While anger should most likely be directed at the music labels filing the copyright claims in the first place, Twitch's lack of transparency is becoming a problem for many streamers.