Twitch Apologizes For Poor Response To The Wave Of DCMA Takedowns

Twitch has put out a statement responding to the massive amount of DCMA notifications that streamers have received over the past year. The company apologized for its poor response to the issue and reiterated the need for streamers to stop playing recorded music on their streams.

"If you play recorded music on your stream, you need to stop doing that," a post on the companies official blog reads. "And 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."

Streamers have been receiving many DMCA notifications for playing recorded music in the background of their streams and have been forced to manually delete old clips that could possibly infringe on copyright. Twitch also apologized in this post (which was also emailed to streamers) about the "frustratingly little information [Twitch] provided" and the lack of content moderation tools that streamers could use to respond to these notifications. The company said that they are working on more tools, including ones that can detect copyrighted audio.

Streamers have been receiving DMCA takedown notifications since March, with thousands coming in waves in July and October. Streamers, some with livelihoods depending on Twitch, were stressed about their channels possibly being shut down for good. Twitch's user guidelines, say that accounts the company deems as "repeat infringers" will be terminated. Due to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), Twitch is legally obligated to penalize repeat offenders and accounts.

Streamers have been quick to criticize Twitch for this response, adding that there must be a better solution than to not play recorded music and delete hundreds of old clips, especially since streamers are still receiving DMCA notifications for clips they've already deleted. Twitch advised that streamers use libraries with rights cleared music like Soundstripe, Monstercat Gold, Chillhop, Epidemic Sound, and NCS.