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Twitch Implements Controversial New Policy Changes

Notably, a system to detect audio-based copyright infringement.

Twitch announced several big policy changes today, the most controversial of which involves a service that scans archived videos for copyrighted music, and muting 30 minutes of the video for each infraction.

No Caption Provided

"We respect the rights of copyright owners, and are voluntarily undertaking this effort to help protect both our broadcasters and copyright owners," said the company in a blog post.

The copyright technology scans videos in 30-minute chunks, and if any infringing music is found, the entire 30 minutes is muted. This only impacts archives, however, and does not extend to livestreams. It's not hard to imagine that's coming at a later date but simply not possible yet.

This has already created some pretty odd situations on the service, including Twitch's own streams being hit by copyright sweeps.

No Caption Provided

Though it hasn't been confirmed that Google is purchasing the streaming service, the company's policy changes today sounds awfully similar to what's rolled out on YouTube with its Content ID system.

The other changes involve its archive (VOD) system. In the past, Twitch allowed all users to save archived broadcasts indefinitely, but that's no longer the case. Normal Twitch users can have broadcasts saved for up to 14 days, while Turbo (paid) users can have them archived for 60 days. Either way, it's no longer forever. Highlight reels, used to spotlight a channel's best moments, are saved indefinitely, but are now limited to a maximum length of two hours. That will likely have an impact on speedrunning players.

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YOUNGLINK

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One step closer to the corporate "singularity"...thanks Google!

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geirr

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So, stop using twitch?

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deactivated-5d0d1bbdad7de

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It's all ogre.
It's all ogre.

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tebbit

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If they can detect the song, why don't they just set a percentage of the ad revenue for that video to go to the publisher?

Oh right, that would be too reasonable.

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borklund

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@tebbit said:

If they can detect the song, why don't they just set a percentage of the ad revenue for that video to go to the publisher?

Oh right, that would be too reasonable.

No, because that is not Twitch's decision to make. The rights to use copyrighted music belongs to the copyright holders, whether you like it or not. A lot of the knee jerk reactions in this thread strike me as either arrogant or ignorant of the fact that nobody has the right to do whatever they want with someone else's copyrighted work, especially when it comes to for-profit streaming. Just because you think that should be the case when it applies to music in streaming doesn't mean it is.

This could just be temporary. Twitch might benefit from some sort of modification to Google's existing music contracts for its own music streaming services, but that depends on their willingness to do so and - of course - the music rights holders' willingness to do so.

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peritus

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Edited By peritus

@mithical said:

@peritus said:

Im guessing the speedrunning community wont be using twitch anymore for much longer. Record runs no longer being archived and a 2 hour limit on highlights. This is pretty shitty, hope AGDQ/SGDQ Vods find a new home.

While this is generally pretty shitty all around, you'll be happy to know SDA has always archived their own marathons. Keep an eye on their site and SGDQ2014 should pop up on the main page within a month or two.

Glad to hear it!

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charlie_victor_bravo

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Oh no! Twitch which offers free service is taking action against illegal activities that could sink the whole company?!

Twitch is not to blame, nor is the Google. Blame rests on people who use the copyrighted material on Twitch's service and lobbying industry that guarantees strict laws and their enforcement. Until one of the two previously mentioned things are corrected, this will be faith of every popular site in the long run.

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fattony12000

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lordofultima

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Oh no! Twitch which offers free service is taking action against illegal activities that could sink the whole company?!

Twitch is not to blame, nor is the Google. Blame rests on people who use the copyrighted material on Twitch's service and lobbying industry that guarantees strict laws and their enforcement. Until one of the two previously mentioned things are corrected, this will be faith of every popular site in the long run.

So someone playing Ice Climbers, or Mike Tyson's Punch-Out...they are to blame? On a website dedicated to streaming video games? lol

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Rasrimra

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Edited By Rasrimra
@charlie_victor_bravo said:

Oh no! Twitch which offers free service is taking action against illegal activities that could sink the whole company?!

Twitch is not to blame, nor is the Google. Blame rests on people who use the copyrighted material on Twitch's service and lobbying industry that guarantees strict laws and their enforcement. Until one of the two previously mentioned things are corrected, this will be faith of every popular site in the long run.

Aren't Twitch and Google guilty of inaction against these laws? I haven't seen them taking a stance, maybe I'm wrong in that. And the action they did take to reinforce these laws is very flawed.

I mean, it's the corporations and their lobbyists that write the law in the USA, not the people. And they are allowed to vote. USA corporations are effectively human giants, the only people who matter.
If Google doesn't take a stance then which corporation will protect us against these copyright lobbyists?

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charlie_victor_bravo

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@rasrimra:The problem also from their point of view is that laws could change to much worse and to be retroactive.

If Google or Twitch could decide freely, of course they would allow everything that is interesting and would bring people and ad revenue. Now they have to balance that against ever growing threat of major legal actions. Enforcing copyright laws can be very profitable business, so fears and per-emptive actions are well justified.

@charlie_victor_bravo said:

Oh no! Twitch which offers free service is taking action against illegal activities that could sink the whole company?!

Twitch is not to blame, nor is the Google. Blame rests on people who use the copyrighted material on Twitch's service and lobbying industry that guarantees strict laws and their enforcement. Until one of the two previously mentioned things are corrected, this will be faith of every popular site in the long run.

So someone playing Ice Climbers, or Mike Tyson's Punch-Out...they are to blame? On a website dedicated to streaming video games? lol

Yes, they rolled the dice and now they must face the music. The copyright law is a mess but the uploader is the one who is responsible and the site has no obligations to them (in this context).

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viking_funeral

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The League of Legends and Speedrun communities on Reddit are pissed.

I sure hope they sold to Google before implementing these changes, otherwise Google might just have convinced a competitor to commit a Digg-like suicide.

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lordofultima

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@rasrimra:The problem also from their point of view is that laws could change to much worse and to be retroactive.

If Google or Twitch could decide freely, of course they would allow everything that is interesting and would bring people and ad revenue. Now they have to balance that against ever growing threat of major legal actions. Enforcing copyright laws can be very profitable business, so fears and per-emptive actions are well justified.

@lordofultima said:

@charlie_victor_bravo said:

Oh no! Twitch which offers free service is taking action against illegal activities that could sink the whole company?!

Twitch is not to blame, nor is the Google. Blame rests on people who use the copyrighted material on Twitch's service and lobbying industry that guarantees strict laws and their enforcement. Until one of the two previously mentioned things are corrected, this will be faith of every popular site in the long run.

So someone playing Ice Climbers, or Mike Tyson's Punch-Out...they are to blame? On a website dedicated to streaming video games? lol

Yes, they rolled the dice and now they must face the music. The copyright law is a mess but the uploader is the one who is responsible and the site has no obligations to them (in this context).

And this is why stupid laws will continue to exist. Because folks like you say it's the law and that's it. THEY ROLLED THE DICE PLAYING PUNCH-OUT, LISTEN TO YOURSELF.

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Crommi

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Whole content-flagging is completely one-sided, there is no penalty for making false claims so obviously the companies would exploit it and flag every video they can because as we've seen in Youtube, the system is so broken you can even claim ownership on content that has nothing to do with you or your IP and claim the ad-revenue from it. While users can theoretically file a complaint, it will be handled through the same automated process that flagged the video in first place. Even better if you can get a claim on an old video that is still popular but the user has gone inactive, so he won't be disputing your claim.

Meanwhile, if user gets three videos flagged, he's out.

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charlie_victor_bravo

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@lordofultima: Yes they did. Are they going to prison? How much fines they have to pay? Oh, they got muted. They are using service that can do that if the service provider so desires. They agreed to this when they started to use the service or (/and) agreed to the term of services.

Law is the law and if you break it you roll the dice. And the whole point of my original post was that nothing is not going to stop this change in the internet unless the problem is fixed in it's root - which is the copyright law and system that controls and modifies it. You can bitch about Google, Twitch and services that replaces them, but the same problem will creep up (with greater strength) again and again unless the real issue is fixed.

People however tend to focus their attention on the surface issues, so this is not likely to ever change for the better.

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ilikepopcans

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@patrickklepek I just wanted to point out a mistake. People who are "partners" on twitch also get 60 days of archiving, and partners don't necessarily need to pay to be one.

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Seeric

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Muting archived streams which contain 'in-game music' is a pretty big deal considering how, unless someone streamed with the game muted, most streams will at the very least have music from the game going on. Completely deleting all existing archived videos 3 weeks from now is the bigger issue though I feel since that is a *lot* of content to simply wipe away; 2-hour highlight reels which may or may not get 25%+ of their content muted really don't cut it when the base videos those highlights are from are going away, especially for groups which do 24+ hour marathon/charity streams.

Assuming Google either already has bought out Twitch behind the scenes or will do so in the very near future, is it possible that this is a gamble on Google's part to potentially kill Twitch in order to encourage people to upload all of their streams to YouTube? After all, YouTube itself has been playing around with streaming and a massive influx of existing streams migrating there would likely give it a boost.

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Rasrimra

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Edited By Rasrimra

@seeric said:

Muting archived streams which contain 'in-game music' is a pretty big deal considering how, unless someone streamed with the game muted, most streams will at the very least have music from the game going on. Completely deleting all existing archived videos 3 weeks from now is the bigger issue though I feel since that is a *lot* of content to simply wipe away; 2-hour highlight reels which may or may not get 25%+ of their content muted really don't cut it when the base videos those highlights are from are going away, especially for groups which do 24+ hour marathon/charity streams.

Assuming Google either already has bought out Twitch behind the scenes or will do so in the very near future, is it possible that this is a gamble on Google's part to potentially kill Twitch in order to encourage people to upload all of their streams to YouTube? After all, YouTube itself has been playing around with streaming and a massive influx of existing streams migrating there would likely give it a boost.

I just doubt this because Youtube is known around the world for ridiculous copyright mistakes and the profitability has disappeared almost entirely. It's just the top 100 that get all the money now. I doubt that even Youtubers who streamed on Twitch would be eager to stream on Youtube even with part of their audience already there. It'd probably have made more sense to keep Twitch as it was, and kinda merge it with Youtube eventually.

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kagato

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I cant wait to see companies getting muted for streaming their own games, you cant make stuff like this automated, it just doesn't work. Everyone just needs to move to another service, clearly Twitch don't care enough to even try to fight for its users, it wont kill them but it will damage them.

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Homelessbird

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Man, copyright law is real fucked up in the internet age, huh? I'll wait until we see what happens before I freak out about this though.

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fattony12000

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Edited By fattony12000
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midnightgreen20

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I can understand the archiving issue, but I think they could handle it in a much better fashion. I think it would be a bit more sensible if you had a certain amount of data to which you can store videos permanently, while the rest that you archive will only be temporary. It's a nice middle ground for those like speedrunners who need to keep the video around, or for those wanting to do tutorials and such in the middle of a stream.

But the blocking of the audio is ridiculous. There isn't really any money to be made off of it, and I highly doubt that people are going onto twitch just so that they can listen to music for free. If anything, it's nice white noise in the background. As people have pointed out, they discovered music because of a stream and went on to buy some songs. It shows that the big wig execs of today have little understanding of the modern world.

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stumpsock

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Edited By stumpsock
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HeroicDrinkingSong

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My favorite is a popular League streamer who got muted even though he wasnt running any music on his stream. Apparently "Audible Magic" muted him because it detected League of Legends music on his League of Legends stream.

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Evilsbane

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Edited By Evilsbane

@derek_davis said:

All streamers should keep in mind, this service has been available completely free for a long time. Don't feel like you're entitled to these great services forever tho, shit costs money!!

Oh so you mean its ok to offer great service at an amazing value, turn the service to shit and then ask for money for less than you were getting for free? Ha.. haha.

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King9999

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So do we start running to Ustream now?

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metal_mills

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Edited By metal_mills

Fuck these cunts who force copyright bullshit on people. They don't give a shit how many people it screws over, even when it's 100% legal, they still want to cripple it.

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NegativeCero

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Twitch is dead. These changes all sound horrible.

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EXTomar

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Saying "its the people's/channel's fault" belies the issue that no one knows who is permitting what. Famously (or infamously), "Happy Birthday To You" is a copyrighted song. Lets say someone wanted to spring a surprise on your birthday while they are streaming so you sing "Happy Birthday To You". It isn't there fault someone came by used a copyrighted song on your channel. Who do you even go to get permission? None of this communicated to anyone until your video gets yanked.

This maybe is an issue where Google and Twitch and others at a legal dead end wall because the courts seem to favor RIAA/MPAA/etc instead of them. What I am curious will happen is if the rise of "copyleft music" will accelerate. There are plenty of small groups and people who self produce and give away their songs for free every chance they get that have signed no deal with anyone. These groups and people tend to be tech and media savvy and will know about this and may see this as an opportunity for themselves and others and rise to help out people fill channels with their freely available music.

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Nethlem

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@d_w said:

I don't know why Google thinks they can automate this sort of process.

Because certain countries have "copyright collectives" that sue the shit of anything and anybody who's streaming/sharing/whatever any music/content that's even remotely considered "copyrighted" by them.

One of the worst offenders being the German GEMA, thanks to them half the videos on YouTube are region locked in Germany, otherwise they'd sue the shit out of YouTube/Google.

Thanks to the "GEMA Vermutung" they automatically consider any music to be part of their portfolio, people actually have to provide evidence that GEMA is NOT the rights holder to certain music, until then GEMA is collecting money for said music. Remember Psy's Gangnam style video on YouTube? Millions of views world wide, but it had been locked in Germany as GEMA demanded money from every single video view, even tho they are not the rights holders to any of Psy's music.

To prevent getting the shit sued outta them YouTube has to automate this process, if they''d check any uploaded video by hand, they basically would need the whole Chinese population to have enough manpower to actually do this.

Fun fact: The same crap happening with Google News in Germany. Press publishers lobbied to get a new law passed so Google has to pay German press for showing parts of their news articles on Google news. They argue that Google is making profit off their news articles, now they are demanding that Google pays 3,3-6,3 Billion US Dollars (every year) as compensation, it's pure insanity!

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year199X

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Edited By year199X

@lordofultima: Yes they did. Are they going to prison? How much fines they have to pay? Oh, they got muted. They are using service that can do that if the service provider so desires. They agreed to this when they started to use the service or (/and) agreed to the term of services.

Law is the law and if you break it you roll the dice. And the whole point of my original post was that nothing is not going to stop this change in the internet unless the problem is fixed in it's root - which is the copyright law and system that controls and modifies it. You can bitch about Google, Twitch and services that replaces them, but the same problem will creep up (with greater strength) again and again unless the real issue is fixed.

People however tend to focus their attention on the surface issues, so this is not likely to ever change for the better.

Probably because apathetic people like you aren't helping.

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SomeJerk

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Reminder that the RIAA wanted laws changed so that they would be able to fine you for hearing music if somebody played music in public and you managed to hear enough to acknowledge that it was music you were hearing.

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veektarius

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@crono said:

Yeah everyone will migrate somewhere else, then some giant corporation will take an interest, implement copyright countermeasures, and then you'll migrate again.

If that is true (it might be), the corporations will not get a return on their investment and will learn from their mistake.

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OneManX

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... Sucks to see all that EVO footage tossed...

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EXTomar

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Oh yeah, people didn't noticed Justin.tv disappeared recently because no one used it. :) And for awhile they've been migrating Justin.tv accounts into Twitch which was its own controversy.

The point is the technology works in so far they can identify songs in video streams which is why they use it. The problem is as we all know is that just identifying a song isn't the whole story or issue where these companies are forced into the default stance of "take it down" due to court rules.

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Edited By BirthWild

just wanted to drop these links for people who might not know about them but like dem streams yo'

Gaming Live, it's in alpha http://alpha.gaminglive.tv/#/channels

HitBox, been around for a little longer http://www.hitbox.tv/

Both these are some newer streaming services and some promising places.

@patrickklepek

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kdrudy

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This is capitalism, any good thing becomes worse over time due to greed.

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I wonder if this would get a ganked by John Williams.

Loading Video...

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Y2Ken

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Edited By Y2Ken

Hmm, this is an odd one. The thing that gets me most is the takedown of VODs, I went back and watched a bunch of Crispy's old Dota 2 streams from the beginning during the run-up to TI4 and with this new implementation I wouldn't have been able to do that because they'd be gone by now.

The music issue is more difficult - I've always been wary of streamers playing music in the background because that seems awfully edge-case legally (in fact I recall a few big streamers a couple of years back, not long after the Twitch branding came into effect, being asked not to play copyrighted music on their streams). But VODs getting muted because of game music or sounds is ridiculous. I understand it might be difficult for an automated system to tell what is what, but if the system isn't working properly then implementing it is bound to cause upset. Thankfully the EVO 2014 vods appear to be fine (whether they escaped the automation or whether they were manually excluded is another question), because I'm still watching through those when I get a chance.

One thing which I've talked a lot about wanting to see is a partnership between Twitch and a music service or two (the likes of Spotify and Pandora come to mind) which allow a broadcaster to pay extra for a "streaming account" that they can legally use in the background while playing games. I'm sure the cost would only really work for the larger channels, but at least it'd clear up that legal grey area somewhat.

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D_W

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What Google and the music industry needs to do is strike up deals similar to that of music venues where streaming sites like Twitch are the venues and streamers are DJs. Apparently another site called turntable.fm tried this and failed for whatever reason. Bottom line is they shouldn't be treating their users like criminals. It's like trying to charge someone who is driving with their windows down while playing music or having a boombox on the beach. Absurdity.

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Oginam

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Didn't have a single highlight touched by this and it really doesn't affect me in the least. I just got my partnership on Twitch a little while ago and I'm a speed runner; I just had the foresight to stick to game audio and upload stuff to youtube anyway (the Twitch VODs are shit for a number of reasons).

It doesn't affect livestreams and hopefully they will go back on the 2 hour thing and reduce the 30 minute penalty for muting to something like 5. Even better if they flag games that get hit for their own soundtracks as immune to those specific matches (like a cover in a GTA game).

Ironically or not, the day this happened I had the largest gain in my follower count ever. "shrugs"

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darkest4

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Edited By darkest4

Draconic copyright law is slowly going to strangle entertainment and other industries to death, it just gets worse and worse and if corporations get their way we'll eventually have even more horrible laws where everything we do in our daily life is subject to copyright claims. Can't even really blame Twitch, it was bound to happen because of these stupid over the top laws, the RIAA, lobbyists etc, though Twitch's implementation seems extremely shitty so far.

Music execs are ridiculous, they are not losing ANY sales because some game streamer played their song in the background. No one is going to twitch for their music needs. No one is saying ""I was going to buy this CD... but some twitch streamer might play the songs sometime so nah I'll pass".

On the contrary, it's free advertising for them. People will hear music on their favorite stream, while they were pursuing an interest that wasn't "buying music", ie watching someone play video games, and may take an interest to an artist which can lead to more sales later on. Music is not the main selling point at all on a twitch stream, it's not why people go there, it just enhances the mood, yet these music execs/RIAA will act like the only reason these streams have viewers is because people want to listen to free music, it's ridiculous, like saying the only reason people go to the dentist or doctor or the mall or wherever else is to listen to the music they play there to make people feel more comfortable. Better install contentid at the dentist, all dem filthy criminal dentists letting people listen to our music, while they get their teeth drilled, without paying for it.

And it's not like these streamers can afford to pay licensing fees anyway, they'll just play copyright free music or none at all, so they're not losing there either. There is literally nothing to be gained by shutting down background music on twitch.

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BradBrains

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I wouldn't only blame google.

Blame American laws and companies who use at the drop of a hat. Viacom is the issue not the companies trying to not get used because of them

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StanleyPain

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@extomar: Interesting that someone should bring up Happy Birthday because it's a classic example of the rife bullshit the world of copyright is filled with. For years Warner/Chappell has claimed they have copyright to it and extracted god-knows how much money from third parties because of it, but no one even bothered to challenge that claim. As it turns out, with a little digging, a filmmaker discovered that their claim to copyright is ridiculous given the age of the song and now there's a trial going forward to rule whether or not Warner made false claims, which if they lose means they'll owe millions in royalties back to the people who paid them. People out there defending this decision really do not understand copyright law in the this country and how abjectly ludicrous if not nearly unconstitutional this kind of pre-emptive nonsense is, especially to paying customers. There is no legal case that could possibly be made that livestreams are anything other than Fair Use demonstrations of games. This would never hold up in court ever, but will it ever get there? Probably not. Copyright was intended to prevent people from STEALING content and branding it as their own. Flat out, plain and simple. The fact that America has evolved this corporate culture of copyright meaning "no one can reference or use your copyright without paying money" is utter garbage.

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MillaJ

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So, Twitch shot itself and all its users in the face. Cool. Time for its competitors to pounce and for people to move on and leave Twitch in a muddy ditch on the side of a road.

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Efesell

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Edited By Efesell

I really have no issue with this insofar as copyrighted music is concerned but if it really turns out that things are muted for actual in-game stuff then what will even be the purpose of Twitch?

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JCTango

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Effin' done with Twitch... what a slap in the face.

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cikame

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Edited By cikame

Not everyone can catch their favorite twitch streamers when they are live, some of those streams are for things like game development, practicing speed runs, other tasks where streamers often listen to music at the same time, all of those videos will be muted.

I suggest only taking action on streams whose sole purpose is to broadcast music, but that would take moderation to determine.

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Jensonb

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Edited By Jensonb

Some of this implementation is shitty. For instance, muting a 30 minute segment regardless of how long the offending content is seems monumentally stupid. Also kinda stupid, but slightly more understandable as a technical limitation, is muting the audio if the music is in the game itself, not least because losing the narration specifically under those circumstances is simply egregious.

That said, I have no sympathy for people weeping over not being able to add Spotify music or whatever to the background any more. The argument seems to be that it's a trivial part of the broadcast so why does it matter? The corollary is if it's so trivial why do you care that you can't do it any more? The fact is, it shouldn't have been going on in the first place. Recognisable music is an advantage to anything. Excusing people who flagrantly flout the rules isn't just unfair on the people who actually own the music, it's unfair on people who play by the rules and observe other people's copyrights. The fact is, music improves things and recognisable music often even more so. Someone, be it Twitch or the broadcaster themself, is profiting off a Twitch video. TV shows can't just use music because they feel like it, the same rules apply in the web.

Regarding the deletion of archives, they actually tossed us a bone. They now allow the exporting of full archives for permanent storage on YouTube, which was previously impossible - you could only export Highlights - and could well expose your videos to a wider audience anyway.

Overall I don't really see much to complain about other than the super limited nature of their Content ID system. That is the very definition of an imperfect solution. 30 minute segments is nuts, and implementing it without finding a way to exclude music the broadcaster has no control over or allowing at the very least the narration to be held over is needlessly ham-fisted.