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Updated October 21st, 2020 at 15:49 IST

Twitch Streamers shocked by sudden DMCA takedown notices sent by the platform

The streaming platform Twitch has been growing rapidly with creators flocking the platform for live streaming. But it recently deleted content of many users.

Reported by: Disha Kandpal
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In recent days several Twitch streamers were taken aback by the DMCA notices served to them, out of the blue, by the streaming platform. The notice started popping up in their mail on Tuesday, October 20. It informed the streamers that Twitch had decided to delete all the content which was violating music copyright laws after receiving. In June 2020, the executives at Twitch were bombarded with a sudden influx of DMCA takedown requests. Hence, months after the phenomenon started Twitch acted on it by deleting its users content. Read on to find out what happened.

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What is DMCA?

A report in the Polygon Magazine has revealed that the DMCA or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is an act which controls how copyrighted material is used online. In the terms of this act, there are provisions that protect platforms from litigation if the platform removes the offending material once notified about the infringement. This is exactly what Twitch is doing at the moment. It is acting on the infringement notice before the situation deteriorates even further and it ends up with multiple lawsuits.

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Here’s what happened on Twitch 

Many Twitch users will be aware of the fact that the platform uses a three-strike policy for its users, which states that if you get three strikes, you’re banned from Twitch. Once Twitch started sending out the takedown DMCA takedown notices. Many of its users and streamers took to Twitter to share the incident. 

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It can be seen in many Twitter posts, that the notice reads, “We are writing to inform you that your channel was subject to one or more of these DMCA takedown notifications and that the content identified has been deleted. We recognize that by deleting this content, we are not giving you the option to file a counter-notification or seek a retraction from the rights holder. In consideration of this, we have processed these notifications and are issuing you a one-time warning to give you the chance to learn about copyright law and the tools available to manage the content on your channel.”

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What do Twitch streamers think about this?

Many twitch streamers took to Twitter to express their discontent about the manner in which Twitch handles the entire situation. A streamer named Devin, stated in his Twitter post, that Twitch randomly deleted the content from his channel and did that with multiple other users. He stated that the platform still does not have a proper system in place for identifying the copyrighted content and just acted impulsively. The streamer furiously stated that Twitch’s solution to the DMCA issue was to unfairly delete it’s creators’ life's work.

The report on Polygon magazine explained that this outrage was further fuelled when it was discovered that Twitch isn’t allowing its users to submit counterclaims or get a retraction of the claim. Instead of the platform merely opted to delete their content. Twitch has also told users that if they have remaining infringing content on their channels, they must review all videos and clips for unlicensed material. A tweet from the Twitch Support account made this even more complicated. Twitch Support tweeted that, “going forward, clips that are identified as having copyrighted music will be deleted without penalty to help ensure you do not receive DMCA notifications from rights holders.”With the confusion flowing across Twitter, Twitch founder Justin Ignacio, who is no longer with the company, tweeted on Tuesday some third-party tools to speed up the process.

 

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Published October 21st, 2020 at 15:50 IST

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