This means that if you are live, you need to make sure that what you show and hear is safe to broadcast to avoid the risk of potential Twitch withdrawal. This can range from muting during the broadcast to permanently suspending your account, depending on the severity of the violation.
To avoid this, there are steps you can take to avoid a strike by Twitch’s DMCA.
What does DMCA mean?
Photo : Ella DON/Creative Communities
It is important to know exactly what the term DMCA means and where it comes from. This acronym stands for Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is part of the US law that protects the owners of copyrighted material against illegal use.
Companies can use copyrighted material provided they have permission from the copyright owner, often through a paid license. However, content that includes the use of copyrighted material may be subject to a destruction order if it violates the DCMA, generally if there is no license for its use.
Since the platform does not allow the use of copyrighted material, every use of Twitch is monitored by its internal servers and objectionable material is removed. A typical DMCA strike for Twitch occurs when a feed uses copyrighted music from a well-known artist and the original program is modified to remove the offending material. It could also have an impact on streaming advertising revenue, although the exact amount is not known.
In the case of more serious crimes, such as. For example, the screening of a Hollywood film that is protected by copyright or the organisation of a live broadcast with an official broadcaster. B. a sports competition, the channel may be completely removed.
Since the company is based in the United States, the entire platform is governed by US law and acceptance of these rules and laws is part of the terms of use of the platform. Therefore, anyone broadcasting on Twitch must respect the copyright laws of the content, regardless of where you are broadcasting from.
How to avoid strikes DMCA
While the rules about what you can and cannot show in a feed are constantly changing, there are a few things you can do to make sure you never see a DMCA hit for your content.
Non-copyrighted music
Image via Harris Heller
The most common type of strike on Twitch is music. If you are listening to a copyrighted song, you may see part of your VOD stream cut off when you rewind frame by frame. Minor infringements usually don’t have long-term consequences, but constantly seeing all your copyrighted music streams muted can put your account at risk.
This means that those who generally use the platform for live performances, such as B. DJs and live shows, are at risk if anything protected by copyright is played or performed. Live musicians, even those with their own accompaniment, usually need a license to play covers of copyrighted material, which can interfere with Twitch’s broadcasts. However, the broadcasting of non-copyrighted music or original music is not a problem.
While it is unclear how the amended DMCA rules will affect those who use the platform to stream this type of content in the future, creators of this type of content should be vigilant to avoid the risk of having their account suspended.
However, if you are using the platform to stream content that does not directly involve the use of copyrighted material (e.g. games) and you want to use music as background music, there are ways to avoid strikes.
Stream Beats by music producer Harris Heller is one of the most popular and easy to use music packages without fear of being hit by the DMCA. All music is available on the major streaming platforms. The sets cover a variety of genres, including EDM, synth and hip-hop.
While Stream Beats is the most popular option, there are other services that can help you, but with a caveat. Pretzel Rocks is a great alternative, but you have to download their software to use it, and Monstercat, which offers a lot of varied and good quality music, but is a quality service, although cheap.
Remix Overclocking is also a great option that offers remixes of music video games that are safe from DMCA because they are different enough from the originals to be classified as fair use. However, you must specify how you want to use the available music. In the FAQ you can read what you can and cannot do with the music on the site.
It’s also advisable to disable music in video games if it contains copyrighted material, because the Twitch robots that analyze them aren’t sophisticated enough to distinguish between in-game streaming and normal streaming, and thus might hit you.
Images and videos
It’s more of a legal grey area when it comes to displaying images and movies, depending on where you get them from. When you buy a movie or TV show, or subscribe to a subscription service like Netflix, you usually get a license to watch it privately. Public use is not permitted without express permission.
This does not apply to the Amazon Prime Streaming Party feature, which can be broadcast on Twitch. However, viewers must have an active Amazon Prime subscription to participate in the feed.
Watching videos on YouTube, which is very common for broadcasters who only do Chat feeds, is much harder to control from a Twitch perspective, but it’s still not safe. This is content that is not yours, and if the owner of the video discovers that you have done this, he or she may demand that your video be removed. As this can also mean a loss of revenue, there may also be grounds for legal action, but this is unlikely in a chain with smaller banners.
The same goes for copyrighted images or for people who need their rights to display certain images. They have the power to stop them if asked. But just like with YouTube videos, you’ll probably find that Twitch won’t stop using them unless you ask them to.
The best thing you can do to protect yourself from potential DMCA attacks from video and image rights holders is to only show material that you have created or have explicit permission to use. While this seems to be a problem when broadcasting, the distribution of copyrighted material can cause you complications if you are removed from service.
By simply sticking to the content you have created yourself, you will ensure that you are free from complications in the future.
With the above tips, you can ensure that you are never again at the mercy of a DMCA attack from Twitch.
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