DMCA and Twitch
Nov 03 2020
So many Twitch people complain about DMCA but I'm not sure they understand why other than they can't play (for streamers) or listen (for viewers) to good music. One thing that seems obvious to me is that if the music is that wanted on stream then it has value and why are we blaming the labels for enforcing their copyrights?
The next thing is blaming DMCA itself. Before DMCA copyright holders had to sue directly both the service and infringing broadcasters (or at least threaten legal action). There are various problems with that (services have to either monitor aggressively or simply ban certain activities) and it lead to copyright extortion where you are threatened with a lawsuit unless you pay a hefty licensing fee.
DMCA is there to both decrease lawsuits (by having an administrative process for complaint, response, and strikes) which also promotes new social-type services since they don't have to worry about lawsuits if they have protocols in place. Remove DMCA and streamers would still have problems except it would be lawsuits rather than getting banned from a platform.
Why do old clips get copyright strikes? Copyright does not have a statute of limitation the same way as crimes. The time does not start when the infringement occurs but when the copyright holder knows about it. So everything on the Internet can get a strike no matter the age (because all new content on the Internet is less than 50 years old).
Can I avoid strikes by making VODs sub-only and not having clips? Yes, but realize that you're still infringing copyright. Just because it's not currently detectable doesn't mean you can go ahead and break copyright law.
Why can't Twitch get a broadcasting license on behalf of streamers, they have all that Amazon money? Broadcasting rights are expensive, for example at how many years it took for Apple and how much Spotify has to do to keep its license at radio station broadcasting level.
The next thing is blaming DMCA itself. Before DMCA copyright holders had to sue directly both the service and infringing broadcasters (or at least threaten legal action). There are various problems with that (services have to either monitor aggressively or simply ban certain activities) and it lead to copyright extortion where you are threatened with a lawsuit unless you pay a hefty licensing fee.
DMCA is there to both decrease lawsuits (by having an administrative process for complaint, response, and strikes) which also promotes new social-type services since they don't have to worry about lawsuits if they have protocols in place. Remove DMCA and streamers would still have problems except it would be lawsuits rather than getting banned from a platform.
Why do old clips get copyright strikes? Copyright does not have a statute of limitation the same way as crimes. The time does not start when the infringement occurs but when the copyright holder knows about it. So everything on the Internet can get a strike no matter the age (because all new content on the Internet is less than 50 years old).
Can I avoid strikes by making VODs sub-only and not having clips? Yes, but realize that you're still infringing copyright. Just because it's not currently detectable doesn't mean you can go ahead and break copyright law.
Why can't Twitch get a broadcasting license on behalf of streamers, they have all that Amazon money? Broadcasting rights are expensive, for example at how many years it took for Apple and how much Spotify has to do to keep its license at radio station broadcasting level.