Posted in: Games, Twitch, Video Games | Tagged: DMCA, Twitch

Twitch's Recent DMCA's Were Over Video Game Sound Effects, Not Music

Published Fri, 13 Nov 2020 20:40:10 -0600

If you're a gamer on Twitch and you recently got a DMCA, it's most likely for one of the most ridiculous reasons you've ever heard. GamesIndustry.biz is reporting today that the most recent string of DMCA takedowns that threatened thousands of accounts on the social streaming platform with suspensions to channel deletion had absolutely nothing to do with music. It had everything to do with sound effects. Yes, that's correct, the strikes against people's channels were against sound effects that a handful of companies consider proprietary. In one example, someone got dinged for the sound of "wind" from World Of Warcraft, another found the clock chimes in a VR game. What's more, the DMCA notices are not coming from the livestreams, they're coming from clips made on people's channels that are saved onto their archives. So many of the issues that have come up come from games that they played years ago that they thought were safe.

What exactly is a noise you can make on Twitch these days that won't get you a DMCA?

While Twitch apologized for the issue on their most recent blog entry, the reality of the situation is that Twitch itself is becoming an unsustainable platform. Like a snake eating its own tail, you can't keep sending out DMCA notices for the most random sounds and expect anyone to want to use your platform. Muting is not an option in this case since the sounds are built into the very games they encourage people to play to get their numbers up. All things considered, it sounds like the only solution for streamers moving forward is to delete all their clips and turn off the ability to make clips from their streams altogether. Because it's become abundantly clear with this recent round of DMCAs, which they have no control over as they are forced to enforce them once a company brings them up, that the company has no plan to rectify or fight these off.

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