Twitch: Changes To Audio In VODS

Just received the e-mail.

Starting today, Twitch will be implementing technology intended to help broadcasters avoid the storage of videos containing unauthorized third-party audio. We respect the rights of copyright owners, and are voluntarily undertaking this effort to help protect both our broadcasters and copyright owners.


What Is Audio Recognition?

We’ve partnered with Audible Magic, which works closely with the recorded music industry, to scan past and future VODs for music owned or controlled by clients of Audible Magic. This includes in-game and ambient music. When music in the Audible Magic database is detected (“Flagged Content”), the affected portion of the VOD will be muted and volume controls for that VOD will be turned off. Additionally, past broadcasts and highlights with Flagged Content are exportable but will remain muted.

The Audible Magic technology will scan for third party music in 30 minute blocks — if Audible Magic does not detect its clients’ music, that portion of the VOD will not be muted. If third party audio is detected anywhere in the 30-minute scanned block, the entire 30 minutes will be muted.

How It Works: Scanning VODs Only

Audio Recognition will only be run against audio in VODs. We are not scanning live broadcasts and there is no automated takedown of live content.

Flagged Content will display an on-screen notification informing viewers that content owned or controlled by a third party has been identified. The progress bar will also be red for the duration of the muted section.

Content-ID-New

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. If you wish to include music in your VODs, please remember that you are responsible for clearing all such rights (this includes ambient music that may be playing in the background while you are broadcasting). If you would like to include free-to-use music in your VODs, there are a variety of resources available to you, including:

Creative Commons
Jamendo
SongFreedom
Broadcaster & Copyright Owner Appeals

If you believe that your video has been flagged improperly and that you have cleared the rights to all of the sound recordings in your uploaded video, then we will consider unmuting your video if you send us a counter-notification that is compliant with the provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”).

Any copyright owner that believes that any of their content is used in any live broadcasts or VOD without authorization should submit a notification of claimed infringement to Twitch pursuant to our Terms of Service.If you are the legal owner of copyrighted music that you would like to protect via Audible Magic’s technology, visit AudibleMagic.com.

Twitch has partnered with Audible Magic without waiving any rights or defenses available to it under law. Twitch is not obligated to filter content stored on the Twitch platform by its users and assumes no liability for the actions of its users notwithstanding the implementation of the Audible Magic technology. Twitch reserves the right to stop filtering audio content in VODs in its sole discretion at any time and without liability to any third party, subject only to any contractual obligations.

We want to hear your feedback and questions. Tune in to the following events to ask us (almost!) anything:

Reddit AMA on /r/Twitch: Thursday, August 7, 10:30am PST
Twitch Weekly: Friday, August 8 at 2pm PST
And, as always, please feel free to leave your comments below. We will answer as best we can.

http://blog.twitch.tv/2014/08/3136/
 

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man
I assume contesting a muting because the use of a reasonable excerpt of a copyrighted song constitutes fair use will not fly?
 

Anth0ny

Member
shaqohhdlk07.gif
 

Orayn

Member
This was already part of Twitch's TOS, but don't let that stop you from declaring the site dead because they're enforcing the rules you were already supposed to follow.
 
yeah, this sucks

How long before they start matching live streams, I wonder? How will this work for streamers that have legitimate rights to play the music, like Day[9] or MANvsGame? A robot can't tell the difference.
 

bjork

Member
It will mute the entire thing, even the commentary if you're doing it?

So what's the answer, playing with the music off? Or do sound effects and stuff count too? I just started recording stuff the other day so I'm still quite in the dark here.
 
This was already part of Twitch's TOS, but don't let that stop you from declaring the site dead because they're enforcing the rules you were already supposed to follow.

Pretty much. It was inevitable and I'm glad they are sorting it out now once and for all.
 
So wait this counts in-game music too? Does this mean that at any point in time, even mid broadcast, a pub can request a channel be shut down? How is this NOT corporate censorship and impingement on free speech/fair use?
 
All of this Twitch news today has been completely unsurprising, considering how bad youtube has gotten since the Google buyout. Yes, it does not apply to live streams as of yet. But just how deep will this go? How many of these little changes will happen over the course of the next year? This is a sad day.
 
Now this, unlike the other change they annouced, is actually terrible. Huge swaths of valuable recorded content are essentially wiped out due to this. I hope they let the broadcasters download the original source material for publish and/or preservation to their own systems without hitting this.

Glad 2k/Firaxis and Paradox don't mind their stuff being streamed. No more shoegazer tunes during games though :/

edit: I'm assuming this is to purge Twitch of copyright stuff that would open up their not-so-secret google overlords to infringement lawsuits.
 
So wait this counts in-game music too? Does this mean that at any point in time, even mid broadcast, a pub can request a channel be shut down? How is this NOT corporate censorship and impingement on free speech/fair use?

No; doesn't apply to live-broadcasts as I posted twice before
 

kenta

Has no PEINS
Man, so even if a game had properly licensed its music, the archived stream of a user who plays it would be muted for 30 minutes at a time as soon as the properly licensed music is detected. Man
 

Orayn

Member
yeah, this sucks

How long before they start matching live streams, I wonder? How will this work for streamers that have legitimate rights to play the music, like Day[9] or MANvsGame? A robot can't tell the difference.

Big streamers with music rights almost certainly have the equivalent of YouTube's "managed" status for MCNs, which tells the robot to either ignore certain things on your channel or even to ignore you entirely.
 
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