Hi everyone,
Currently, Twitch’s policy is that if a streamer gets enough copyright strikes, they will be permanently banned. Recently, Twitch has implemented new tools that streamers can use to address copyright claims made against their streams and clips, which will hopefully help them avoid being banned without warning. One tool will notify streamers of any takedown requests, which will appear in their Twitch inbox, made against their streams. It also lets them see their status in terms of takedown requests and copyright strikes, keeping better track of such notices and increasing transparency a bit. Another tool now allows streamers to go back to their archive of streams and video clips and delete them either all at once or in batches.
Last year, Twitch notified several streamers that their videos were flagged for DMCA takedown notifications and deleted them without giving them any opportunities to file counterclaims. Twitch later apologized for the way it handled this and revealed their plan of adding new features that are supposed to help streamers deal with copyright issues. These recent tools are part of Twitch’s plan to better deal with the constant and widespread copyright issues on their platform.
While the introduction of these tools is a positive step, it does raise the question of why Twitch didn’t have these sorts of tools in the first place. Also, requiring streamers to outright delete their past streams and clips seems to be very harsh since past clips are very valuable to streamers. Perhaps a better approach would be to introduce tools that remove the copyrighted music or audio for the duration it plays in the video? Or, instead of deleting the flagged streams and clips, perhaps it would be better to unpublish them so that the streamer can review and possibly file counterclaims? It seems like Twitch has yet to find the right balance between its DMCA Guidelines, its users, and its approach to dealing with copyright.
Communications Law