Twitch promises transparency on copyright policy

The warnings had ruffled feathers and caused ambiguity among the platform’s users who have been asking questions about the platform’s copyright policies.

“Creators, we hear you”, Twitch wrote. “Moving forward, we’ll be more transparent with what’s happening and what tools and resources we’re building to help.

“Some of you have asked why we don’t have a licence covering any and all uses of recorded music. We are actively speaking with the major record labels about potential approaches to additional licences that would be appropriate for the Twitch service. That said, the current constructs for licences that the record labels have with other services, which typically take a cut of revenue from creators for payment to record labels, make less sense for Twitch.”

The company said it had received an unusual influx of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown requests from major record labels since May, and that it was committed to finding workable solutions for both copyright holders and its users.

“The vast majority of our creators don’t have recorded music as a part of their streams, and the revenue implications to creators of such a deal are substantial. We’re open-minded to new structures that could work for Twitch’s unique service, but we must be clear that they may take some time to materialise or may never happen at all.”

Twitch also elaborated on its takedown policy and offered more advice to its users. “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). 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.”

The live-streaming platform promised to make improvements on its tools for detecting copyrighted audio and managing archive broadcasts and clips.