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Oh dear. Twitch, the video game streaming site that is most likely set to be bought out by Google for a billion dollars in the near future, has announced sweeping changes that will see whole 30 minute sections of videos on demand muted, if they are found to contain copyright protected music.
“Starting today, Twitch will be implementing technology intended to help broadcasters avoid the storage of videos containing unauthorized third-party audio,” begins the blog post, which is worded as if Twitch is talking to a judge.
“We respect the rights of copyright owners, and are voluntarily undertaking this effort to help protect both our broadcasters and copyright owners.”
To achieve the speedy takedown of any videos found to be infringing musical copyright, Twitch has teamed up with the inappropriately named, Audible Magic, which much like Youtube's Content ID system, is an automated content recognition system. It will work in this instance, by automatically going through Twitch's back catalogue of videos on demand and listening out for any music that is owned by a third party, be it ambient music, or in-game.
If it finds any, it will mute that part of thee video and turn volume controls off for the viewer.
Affected videos will look a bit like this
However it gets much worse, because Audible Magic's content spotting system isn't a finely crafted tool and will instead of muting something specific, just mute a giant 30 minute section of the video surrounding the copyright protected music.
The only real caveat here, is that this new content blocking won't work for live streams. Though any attempts to download muted clips will still give the same result.
Twitch also explained how some people may be hit with mutings unfairly, but that that was just an unfortunate side effect of this move: “Please note that Audio Recognition is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate. It may return false positives or miss content from copyright owners who do not work with Audible Magic.”
It then went on to suggest that streamers simply used creative commons or unlicensed music for their videos instead and in the event of a false positive, they should file a counter-notification in compliance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Understandably, many users aren't pleased. Fortunately though, if you'd like to tell Twitch what you think, you can do so in a Reddit AMA later today at 6:30PM.
Discuss on our Facebook page, HERE.
KitGuru Says: Just like Content ID, Twitch's new system is guilty until proven innocent. Quite a shame, though I imagine this was a stipulation of a sale to Google: implement something automated to counter any lawsuits it might be struck with in the future.
Never heard of Twitch, and now I have, I won’t be using it, due to this user unfriendly implementation.
What we’re seeing here is the another step in the demise of ‘Fair Use’
Money greedy mother fuckers ruining everything they touch, this is why I don’t buy any product that I dont have to. I am sick and fucking tired of these fucking “stars” getting butt hurt over not getting an extra bit of cash when they are already millionaires. There are people starving on the streets in America and all these pieces of shit human beings can think about is money. I cannot wait for a disaster to purge this planet of the miserable excuse for life that is the human species. We are a fucking virus to this world and we are slowly killing it, I am ashamed to be human and cannot wait to be purged from the earth as all humans inevitably will.
I completely agree with you. It’s revolting. Hearing about this makes me sick.
Stop complaining, ever heard of HitBox? Less delay and overall much better.
Why do you idiots even bother commenting, Broadcasting music is illegal unless you have permission from the person who has the license ,buying a game with music in it or buying music does not give you the right to be able to broadcaster it, its against the law.
It is not illegal if used when commentating, it’s all part of the “fair use” doctrine, which Google apparently doesn’t understand.
its illegal to broadcast anything without the permission of the company which owns the license without permission, if you look at the eula your not even supposed to stream games but the companies allow it, if they didnt want one of their games to be broadcast live they could stop it!, there is no such thing as a fair use, and as for the ” It is not illegal if used when commentating” comment, thats the most stupid thing ive heard. look at it another way do you think you could broadcast a film say like the new xmen and because you speak of it its would be classed as legal? you really havent got a clue what your talking about!!!
you SOLD your music to a company that SOLD it to it’s customers and now
you want more money from the consumers that show off what is now legally
theirs…….what a Crock and crooked way of thinking. you got paid
once for your work. don’t come looking to get paid twice.
“They” will never win this war. Resistance is futile. There ALWAYS will be a way around ANY restriction they try to implement.