Twitch Says It’s In Talks to License Music, Informs Streamers to Delete Videos with Unauthorized Music

It’s been a long-standing issue for Twitch as it deals with DMCA strikes, and an even rougher go for even the most successful twitch streamers who have seen hours of content deleted, and bans issued.

According to Variety, Twitch says it was “surprised” by the “sudden avalanche” of copyright takedowns that started back in May of this year, and in a brand new blog post Twitch is informing it’s streamers to stop playing recorded music on their streams unless it’s officially licensed.

“Most importantly, don’t play recorded music in your stream unless you own all rights in the music, or you have the permission of the necessary rights holder(s)” Twitch informed in the post.

“Doing this is the best protection for your streams going forward. If you’re unsure whether you own all the rights, it’s pretty likely you don’t. If you want to include recorded music in your stream, use a fully licensed alternative like Soundtrack by Twitch, or other rights cleared music libraries such as Soundstripe, Monstercat Gold, Chillhop, Epidemic Sound, and NCS.”

Twitch claims that it is “actively speaking with the major record labels about potential approaches to additional licenses that would be appropriate for the Twitch service” but adds that the “current constructs for licenses” would “make less sense for Twitch.”

“We were as surprised by this sudden avalanche of notifications as many of you were,” Twitch said in the post. “We also realized that we needed to provide streamers with more educational programs and content management tools to help you deal with this unprecedented number of notifications coming in all at once.”

Twitch apologized to their content creators for the angst that the DMC takedowns have caused, admitting that their warning email issued last month “didn’t include all the information that you’d typically get in a DMCA notification.”

“We could have developed more sophisticated, user-friendly tools a while ago. That we didn’t is on us,” it said. “And we could have provided creators with a longer time period to address their VOD and Clip libraries — that was a miss as well. We’re truly sorry for these mistakes, and we’ll do better.”

Twitch said users can use “fully licensed” alternatives like Soundtrack by Twitch, but that has even received some criticism from music organizations, who cited it in their October 22nd letter to the Amazon platform.

Twitch has also rolled out a new FAQ on DMCA and copyright for creators and added a “Copyright and Your Channel” Creator Camp page with upcoming live sessions to provide information and tips.