Twitch strikes new copyright deals with music industry labels

Following a tumultuous year for Twitch, in the form of numerous Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) infringements, the livestreaming service reached licensing deals with two major record labels, the National Music Publishers’ Association and Warner Music Group. 

The deals are expected to allow Twitch to pursue more effective means of addressing copyright infringement, rather than continuing with the current method of banning users for playing copyrighted music on streams.

Key Players

Twitch is an Amazon-owned, American livestreaming service that caters primarily to video games and Esports. Historically, the service has had a contentious relationship with music industry record labels that have accused Twitch of allowing its streamers to play copyrighted music freely without appropriate licensure. Traditionally, Twitch has issued bans to streamers who were continuously flagged by the service’s copyrighted content identification algorithm.

The National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) is the trade association for all American music publishers and their songwriting partners. The association has pursued litigation against streaming services like Napster and LimeWire, but has also reached royalty distribution deals with services like YouTube.

The Warner Music Group (WMG) is an American entertainment and record label conglomerate and is the third largest recording company in the music industry, after Universal Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment. 

Further Details

On June 8, 2020, Twitch Support wrote, “We’ve had a sudden influx of DMCA takedown requests for clips with background music from 2017-19.” According to Kotaku, numerous streamers reported their clips had received DMCA strikes. 

Twitch had had copyright issues in the past, but tensions continued to grow. On July 29, 2020, during a House Antitrust Subcommittee hearing, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Twitch’s parent company Amazon, said he did not know whether Twitch allowed users to stream copyrighted music. Following the hearing, the Artists Rights Alliance issued a letter that it was “appalled … by [Bezos’s] inability or unwillingness to answer even the most basic question about Twitch’s practices in this regard.”

On Sept. 30, 2020, to address the demand for copyright-free music, Twitch released its own Soundtrack, a collection of millions of ostensibly fully licensed songs curated specifically for streamers to play, according to Variety. 

On Oct. 20, 2020, in an effort to comply with DMCA guidance, Twitch announced a mass deletion of thousands of clips (short snippets of livestreams) and videos on demand (VODs) that contained copyrighted content, Kotaku reported. 

The real-time nature of the livestreaming service means the deleted clips and VODs make up a vast majority of streamers’ saved work. Without any specialized identification tools, the mass email informed streamers that content containing copyrighted material had been deleted, and they had three days to review and delete any remaining clips and VODs that could violate the DMCA. 

The immediate reaction from streamers was extremely negative. Devin Nash, a high-profile Twitch streamer and industry insider, tweeted that Twitch was exhibiting “pure, gross negligence,” arguing Twitch did not provide an “identification system” to determine what remaining content needed to be deleted. 

“[Twitch’s] solution to DMCA is for creators to delete their life’s work,” said Nash. 

“I seriously don’t understand why Twitch is so unable to provide documented reasoning as to what rules you break when you break them,” tweeted the streamer Teawrex, adding that there had been a “giant throughline for years” of streamers being at loose ends when they got suspended or hit with a warning and that the DMCA protocol adds a new layer of murkiness. 

On Oct. 22, 2020, Twitch received a letter from various American music publishers like the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the NMPA criticizing the platform for failing to account properly for “neither synch nor mechanical licenses” in the creation of its Soundtrack tool, as reported by Variety. 

The letter also accused Twitch of “allowing and enabling its streamers to use our respective members’ music without authorization” and referenced the House Antitrust Subcommittee testimony given by Bezos.

On March 17, 2021, Twitch announced new tools that would help streamers view and address their takedown requests and copyright strikes, including notices of DMCA infringements. Streamers could also now mass unpublish or delete their VODs, according to Music Business Worldwide.

Outcome

Twitch announces deal with National Music Publishers’ Association

On Sept. 21, 2021, PC Gamer reported that Twitch announced a new deal with the NMPA to “build productive partnerships between the service and music publishers.” However, the platform emphasized the deal would not alter the legality of copyrighted music. 

Rather, as part of the agreement, Twitch created a new process for rights holders “to address when creators inadvertently or incidentally use copyrighted music in their streams.” The process is meant to be “more flexible and forgiving” than the previous system, as streamers would receive a warning rather than immediate penalties.

According to Music Business Worldwide, Twitch is legally obligated to comply with DMCA takedown requests served by the rights holders of the copyrighted music in order to be protected from copyright infringement and not be held liable for infringing user-generated content.

Twitch also signs deal with Warner Music Group

On Sept. 27, 2021, Twitch announced a deal with WMG, the first agreement the platform has reached with one of the “big three” record labels in the music industry. 

In addition to WMG being able to report copyright violations more easily, according to Marketing Dive: “The deal will see the companies launch channels for select label artists and create a standalone space for music-focused programming.”