When it comes to the licensing of music on streams, Twitch has suffered more than most, leading to some odd events in the past such as Metallica not being able to broadcast its songs during a virtual performance.
The issue of music licensing has come up again this week, with Twitch reaching a settlement with the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) that addresses the previous unauthorised use of music on the platform.
That is it, however, with the deal not granting content creators the ability to choose from a catalogue of music to legally use during streams, as was the hope when both parties met at the bargaining table.
As Billboard explains, the deal only settled past infringements and opens up the opportunity for future collaborations between the two organisations, although nothing is written in stone at this stage.
The NMPA said that it could potential allow, “for future collaborations to bring new facets to both the gaming experience and songwriter exposure.”
So where does this leave Twitch streamers? Well the Amazon-owned platform has outlined a new process for now future infringements will be handled.
To that end, the process will differ slightly from the DCMA ones of the past, with a warning being handed out instead of a penalty, depending on the content creator’s history in terms of the illegal use of music. After a rights holder reports a stream, a warning will be issued and clips containing the music will be removed.
For more blatant violations of policy, such as streaming a concert or leaked unreleased music, Twitch would issue a fully fledged penalty, although the extent of the penalty is unclear at this stage.
As such, it looks like right holders have better mechanisms in place to report to Twitch, but streamers will still have to tread lightly when it comes to the use of music in their content.
Hopefully though, the aforementioned catalogue or some kind of licensing agreement can be hashed out when those future collaborations come to fruition. For now, Twitch streamers are better off creating content sans music.
