Streamers on Twitch have been troubled by DMCA issues for some time now. The recent spate of takedown notices and account closure threats has led many creators to take drastic measures to devise DMCA-safe content, but some new tools from Twitch might make it a little easier to protect themselves going forward.
Though the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was passed over 20 years ago, it's only fairly recently that it's begun to be so strictly enforced, much to the chagrin of streamers everywhere. Last summer, Twitch users started receiving a deluge of copyright strikes, forcing many to go through and delete large swathes of videos from their channels in order to dodge a potential ban from the service. This proved a tricky and time-consuming process for some, but one that Twitch's new tools look set to somewhat alleviate.
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Following their announcement last year of their intent to improve their systems for dealing with DMCA notices, Twitch streamers will now be able to more easily keep track of any copyright strikes made against them, receiving a message through their on-site inbox. On top of that, they can also now unpublish or delete videos from their channel en masse, either all at once or in batches of 20.
Twitch also laid out plans for future tools, including an option for users to delete clips of their channel, sorting by view count, game or date. There's no news yet on any less-drastic options, such as hiding or delisting videos and clips, or providing a 'demonetized' option similar to YouTube, which would allow streamers and viewers to retain content in their often-extensive back catalogue of videos.
The tools will certainly make it easier for creators to delete the offending streams and videos, but many feel that they only focus on damage control after the fact. Some options exist for avoiding copyright claims in the first place, such as copyright-free playlists on Spotify and Twitch's own Soundtrack by Twitch service, but these aren't one-size-fits-all solutions. Those who stream rhythm games like DJ sim Fuser, for example, are seemingly left out in the cold, and without more granular tools to tweak or selectively mute certain sections of flagged videos, it appears they will continue to be so.
All in all, it's hard not to feel as though Twitch's response to the DMCA issues is a case of too little, too late, coming almost ten months after last June's massive avalanche of takedown warnings. The mass-deletion tools will no doubt make it easier for streamers to protect themselves from the worst of it, but many are surely feeling hard done by at being forced to delete months or years of content at the whim of a capricious record executive. Unfortunately it appears they have few alternatives for the time being, short of producing all the sound effects themselves on stream.
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Source: The Verge