Twitch: Changes To Audio In VODS

Boom.

(For those not in the Hitbox thread...)

Hitbox said:
It’s sad to see someone lose touch with the very people that made them big. Forcing a 30+ second delay on streamers and ruining their VoD’s with automated copyright claims is a slap in the face of everyone who tries to share their passion for gaming with the world.

Luckily we all have a voice and can make ourselves heard. We did it by creating a platform that is deeply rooted within the community, you can do it by joining us.
At hitbox you’re always with friends, and the soundtrack is whatever you want it to be.

hitbox is

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Our technology isn’t the only thing fast here, either. We have a dedicated support team, ready to answer your questions and help when it’s needed.

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Our main focus is, and will always be, YOU, our community. Every existing or new feature is built with your needs and wishes in mind. This is also why features like VoDs are public. No need to pay for full access and no automated copyright protection muting your memories. We have integrated YouTube functionality and allow downloading recordings as video files.

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We are strong and here to stay.

So what are you waiting for? Time to Switch!
 
Yes, it's live and the first question asked was about how long it will be before livestreams are next on the list for copyright stuff and Emmett had this to say:

We have absolutely no intention of running any audio recognition against live video, period.

Now, I don't doubt this won't be happening now but there's absolutely no way it won't happen in several months from now.
 
For those of you who don't like to use Reddit, Here are his answers so far.
Niklas11 50 points 5 minutes ago
Most important question:
How long will it be before Twitch goes full twitch chat and start going after livestreams and not just vods?
Twitch CEO said:
We have absolutely no intention of running any audio recognition against live video, period.
J4nG 27 points 6 minutes ago
Is there a process a streamer can go through if they believe that their videos have been unfairly flagged and muted?
Twitch CEO said:
For now, please email feedback@twitch.tv if you think there's a problem. We're working on building an appeals system since that's obviously important.
And no, I can't comment, it says so right in my original post.
 
More Questions. Answers in bold.
My question for you is: How do you think you will support smaller streamer, with a viewer base of 50 or less viewer on peak, in the near future? All you offer is fantastic help to people who seem like to do fine anyway.
Host mode is one of the many things we're doing to support small streamers. It's an amazing way for big streamers to help smaller deserving streamers out, and we hope it gets used for that even more in the future.
Developing small streamers into big ones is a huge goal for us.

What are the future plans for the audio technology you're using?
Will it expand to live content?
and will we see any changes to the current VOD system?
Future plans: increase the scan resolution so that we don't have to flag 30 minute chunks at a time, identify why things have been flagged, institute an appeals system, make sure there isn't any original game music on the flagging list.
We have no plans at all for it to expand to live content.

Did Twitch need to change up things? Was there some sort of issue or problem that sparked this? If not, why then did Twitch change stuff?
Thank you for doing the AMA!
We did need to change things. This is laying groundwork for some work in the future you guys are REALLY going to like. We've been intending to do this for some time, but it took us a while to identify and select a content identification partner and get the system up and reliable.
Are you guys getting bought by Google, and is the music on VODs related?
As it says in my top post, I am not commenting on the rumors. Thanks!
Will automatic muting be applied to the Twitch chat whenever the chorus to Sandstorm is typed out?
Du du du du du du du du du not worry
 
For those of you who don't like to use Reddit, Here are his answers so far.

I like how they were in such a sudden rush to get this muting system out that they didn't even bother to fine tune it and implement necessary systems like a concrete appeal system and higher resolution than 30 minute chunks of muted video.. Aren't those things that should have been figured out before rushing this out the door?
 
I like how they were in such a sudden rush to get this muting system out that they didn't even bother to fine tune it and implement necessary systems like a concrete appeal system and higher resolution than 30 minute chunks of muted video.. Aren't those things that should have been figured out before rushing this out the door?
I'm thinking that maybe their lawyers/ and/or Google didn't give them enough time to implement a proper system. I don't know but that's what seems like to me.
 
Cosmo's post.

I have cancelled all my subscriptions and I will not renew Turbo. I am currently looking for alternative sites to stream on (perhaps hitbox.tv). The least I can do is give an alternative site a try, even if it hurts my income. I do hope an alternate site could work out, because Twitch has a near-monopoly on live gaming content at the moment.
I'm simply finding it rather hard to support a site that is so afraid of a legal grey-area that it pre-emptively begins to sabotage a large portion of its user base.
My question to you: Why should I keep streaming on Twitch as opposed to a different site that has none of these issues?
Damn son.
 
What are the future plans for the audio technology you're using?
Will it expand to live content?
and will we see any changes to the current VOD system?
Future plans: increase the scan resolution so that we don't have to flag 30 minute chunks at a time, identify why things have been flagged, institute an appeals system, make sure there isn't any original game music on the flagging list.
We have no plans at all for it to expand to live content.

Guys, this is stuff you conceive, develop, and test BEFORE you roll out your implementation to your users.
 
Yes, it makes no sense to release a clearly broken system and fix it “in the future”. There's definitely something underlying all this. I'm pretty sure even YouTube didn't start with such a stupid system… there was at least some kind of appeal process.
 
More Questions.
Shouldn't you have built an appeals process before implementing a system with these results?
Probably, but no v1 is perfect.

Can we get that in writing? Not to be an ass but a ton of people (myself included) believe it will happen in the future.
It's in writing. Right here. We really don't want to do it on live, and I don't see any reason why we ever would.

Hi Emmett,
As a Twitch enthusiast (watcher & streamer) and media research analyst, I have a few questions for you:
If you could stream any game right now, which one would it be?
In the near future, will there be any change in the order of live channels shown under each game? Are you planning on addressing the "richer get richer, poor get poorer" dynamic of the current way streams are listed? It seems very difficult for small & new streamers to get discovered
Why is there no longer an option to locally download your VODs?
What do you think the media landscape will be like 5 years from now? Do you think the traditional TV medium will be completely eclipsed by digital media? I was in a Nielsen conference yesterday and many people in the TV industry still seem to be in denial
Are you/will you be hiring any media research analysts? Do you have an Ad Sales team? Do you have any recommendations for people who are interested in working at Twitch?
Thanks for doing this AMA.

1) SolForge, I'm obsessed right now
2) We're experimenting with new types of sorts right now. The CS:GO directory is our first attempt to attack this problem. Host mode is also an attempt to provide broadcaster-powered discovery tools.
3) Product design constraints at the moment; this is something we would like to allow in the future. If you want to save for now, please save a copy locally as you're streaming.
4) The media landscape will be radically different in 5 years. Video is moving to the internet, and there's nothing anyone can do to reverse that process.
5) We aren't hiring media research analysts at the moment, but we do have an ad sales team. If you want to work at Twitch, check out twitch.tv/jobs !
 
The guy doing the AMA is already deleting some of the comments he made. One said "Probably, no V1 system is perfect" or something like that. And now it is gone. EDIT: Nevermind it is still there. Just down voted into oblivion.
 
Dear Twitch,
I've loved your site before its inception, back when it was only Justin.tv's gaming section. It's thanks to your service that I was able to turn my passion into a dream job.
However, several implemented changes to the site has made the site a worse experience. The streaming delay was the final straw for a lot of people, but I had faith that Twitch knew best. Around this time I was in San Francisco, and some Twitch employees told me in person that this change was necessary in order to maintain a profitable business, despite it hurting the quality of the site. Fine, whatever. I'll deal with it.
Deleting all past broadcasts and limiting highlights to 2 hours was extremely disappointing, and I hoped that workarounds were potentially possible and that you would listen to us. Yesterday myself, some speedrunners, and some Twitch staff members had a Skype conversation about this. Twitch staff were rather opposed to lengthening the Highlight VODs because of storage concerns, despite deleting petabytes of past broadcasts.
Breaking up highlights reminds me of when we had to record our speedruns in 2 hour chunks via DVD recorder. A bad limitation of old technology. Yet here we are in 2014 and we are having our content once again broken up into 2 hour segments. This severely impacts the usability of highlights. I have legitimate use cases for long highlights, as we archive our best speedrun times and use the VOD as proof. See: http://zeldaspeedruns.com/leaderboards/tww/any.
Forget all that, though. The 2 hour highlight limit is nothing compared to Content ID matching.
Applying Content ID matches on gaming music on a site that was built to stream videogames is absurd. Game music directly from the capture of the game itself is being taken down all over. Dealing with YouTube's overzealous policies on gaming content has been one of the most obnoxious things I've experienced as a content creator, and one of the reasons Twitch felt like home to me is because it's supposed to be a website focused on gaming content creation.
It certainly doesn't seem to be working out like that, though. Maybe it is due to needing to keep the company sustainable. Maybe it is fear of copyright issues now that Twitch has grown so much. Whatever it is, it is significantly impacting the user experience.
I have cancelled all my subscriptions and I will not renew Turbo. I am currently looking for alternative sites to stream on (perhaps hitbox.tv). The least I can do is give an alternative site a try, even if it hurts my income. I do hope an alternate site could work out, because Twitch has a near-monopoly on live gaming content at the moment.
I'm simply finding it rather hard to support a site that is so afraid of a legal grey-area that it pre-emptively begins to sabotage a large portion of its user base.
My question to you: Why should I keep streaming on Twitch as opposed to a different site that has none of these issues?
-Cosmo Wright
His response.
W/ regard to 2 hour chunks:
Our research prior to launching the feature indicated that almost no highlights were longer than 2 hours, and we were concerned about abuse of the tool. It's clear that we underestimated the demand and need for a solution here, and fortunately we have 3 weeks to figure one out. Expect changes here soon.
It has disproportionately large impact on certain communities (speedrunning most obviously) and we're very concerned about making sure that every community on Twitch has a good experience.
W/ regard to content id:
Hey Cosmo, I understand your feelings here. We have absolutely no intention of flagging songs due to original in-game music. If that's happening, it's a problem and we will investigate and try to fix it.
PS: I don't think your VODs are being flagged right now, but I realize that doesn't help anyone else getting caught in the crossfire.
 

To be honest with him/everyone he is basically running from a problem that will stil chase him down regardless of the streaming service. These .tv sites will budge once enough money and pressure hits them. It's basically going to be a race from now on to find the last Sanctuary from these copyright laws

However, I understand and don't blame him for looking for one while he still can.
 
He edited his response to Cosmo after (rightfully) being called out on dodging the question. The addition:

W/ regards to your last question, why Twitch:
Because we care about you and your viewers, and we want every broadcaster on Twitch to be protected from potential liability. No matter how remote you might feel the issue is, we aren't willing to run the risk someone's life gets ruined over this.
 
lolol no highlights 2 hours long according to their research? I could probably name 20 games/categories that are going to have highlights longer than that. And especially now with past broadcasts being deleted people are going to want to save some stuff.
 
Overreaction.

There will be issues moving to new systems, and I expect it will be fixed.
People leaving Twitch because of these initial bumps are just going to suffer in the end with the lower viewership.
 
He edited his response to Cosmo after (rightfully) being called out on dodging the question. The addition:

Shameful they're trying to use that as a defense, considering almost every move Twitch has made over the past few years have been 1) Detrimental to streamers, 2) Not clearly communicated beforehand to the masses.
 
Overreaction.

There will be issues moving to new systems, and I expect it will be fixed.
People leaving Twitch because of these initial bumps are just going to suffer in the end with the lower viewership.

Yeah it's a massive overreaction that someone who speedruns GTA has every single second of their highlights muted because of the music played in game. They did nothing wrong and are being penalized harshly. Yeah overreactions!
 
More answers. Again, Answers by the CEO in Bold.
"These videos still infringe copyright. There is nothing magical about audio; images from a game are also copyrighted and Twitch has left the video up, which means they are still violating copyright. That Mario sprite is ©Nintendo and if the audio isn't covered under fair use, the video isn't either." -- Ron Amadeo, Ars Technica
The above comment was made with regard to Twitch's new, aggressive muting of all copyrighted music on the site, regardless of owner intent (including now-infamously muting Valve's The International 4 VODs because they included in-game music from DOTA 2... which Valve owns the rights to).
Could you comment on why Twitch is aggressively, proactively enforcing copyrights on audio while doing nothing about copyrighted video?
Are you taking the stance that streaming audio isn't fair use? If you believe it is not, what is your rationale for believing streaming video is fair use?
Twitch seems to have backed itself into a corner (legally) by voluntarily adopting this aggressive muting policy.
Should we expect to see the muting rolled back, or the site blacking out VODs? It's difficult to see a consistent stance on copyright matters by Twitch unless you do one or the other.
Game companies have the public stance (and private stance directly with Twitch) that they allow anyone to stream their games. See http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1egayn/lets_build_a_list_of_game_studios_that_allow/ for example. This isn't a fair use argument, it's a generally available license that you're taking advantage of.
Broadcasting unlicensed music in the background is not fair use either, and there is no generally available license. Therefore this is not something that we want our broadcasters to accept liability for (nor do we want to accept liability for it either).
They're completely different cases, and the logic is different in each.


If you honestly cared about streamers and twitch viewers you wouldn't be making these changes. There has been nothing but backlash from this
We knew there would be backlash from this, but we're willing to take the hit for the good of the community in this case.

How are streamers such as "kaceytron" allowed to stream on Twitch when they are breaking your own T&C's and are profiting from it. For example, when watching a stream by herself last night entitled "Tired of people saying that I show cleavage whenever I don't" this is the what was being broadcast source http://i.imgur.com/P21KHxw.png past broadcast http://www.twitch.tv/kaceytron/b/555307469
In your own legal T&C's it is written (2nd c, down) source http://www.twitch.tv/user/legal
13. c, Content that is unlawful, libellous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, suggestive, harassing, threatening, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, inflammatory, fraudulent or otherwise objectionable;
It is quite apparent she shows no regard for this statement in her title and is playing oblivious for the views, donations and subscriptions. This in turn draws in extra viewers who are only there to inflame on her chat to try and evoke a reaction from her, resulting in more advertisement revenue.
She is also quoted in her previous broadcast as saying she abides to all Twitch T&C's time: 2:43:31
While she may be hosting gaming related content, her webcam content is extremely obscene, indecent, lewd and suggestive. The way she also speaks to her viewers in chat is inflammatory and a lot of times she is abusive to any criticism she is giving, this can be said about the people in her chat too.
During this stream, it was also noted that a member of Twitch staff and a Twitch admin were viewing the stream for around 30 minutes and no action was taken of any kind. (sorry no screen shot)
How can this be justified when someone is showing complete disregard to your T&C's and is profiting from it without consequences?
p.s Thanks for doing this AMA, it's given us all a chance to ask what we want to :)
Edit: Just to be clear , this is about someone who is breaking a websites T&C's in more than one place and getting away with it whereas other user will have the ban hammer slapped down on them for much more minor things. Not that she has boobs.
Hey mr. gameof_bones --
Not sure about this particular incident since I wasn't on the site at the time and it's the first I've heard of it. Sorry I can't be more helpful...I'll look into it.
 
I feel quite bad for the people who work at Twitch. The whole thing is just being exaggerated by the Twitch community. Even if people move from twitch to hitbox, this will eventually happen to hitbox then other websites after that. The current method they are using to mute VODs is flawed but most likely they will fix it over time.
 
I think the music issue is fair as long as they can actually keep in-game music from triggering the mute

I think the proper solution is to handle things on a case-by-case basis using actual breathing humans as opposed to an unnecessary clumsily implemented automated system.

Would that be a lot of work? Hell yeah it would, but that's not my problem.
 
Yeah it's a massive overreaction that someone who speedruns GTA has every single second of their highlights muted because of the music played in game. They did nothing wrong and are being penalized harshly. Yeah overreactions!

Yes, it is overreaction. Do you think Twitch doesn't know it and is working on fixing it?

Look at the response. They know about it.

Edit: Nevermind, I missed the word original. The responsibility will be on the streamers to disable non-original music then.
 
He edited his response to Cosmo after (rightfully) being called out on dodging the question. The addition:

Because after years of people streaming on twitch, so many lives have been ruined by legal challenges.

Wait no, no lives have been ruined because of legal challenges. Nevermind.

This is simply twitch trying to fix a problem that nobody was even complaining about. If a company send a take down request, then absolutely twitch should do something. Preemptively attacking streamers before any notice, or reason, or anything at all... that's just fucked up.

edit: and he deleted his cosmo comment
 
edit: and he deleted his cosmo comment

Nah, just downloaded. But you're correct about the takedown requests, they do that already if someone streams a game before the release date. I'd have thought it'd be the same for streamers who have constantly broken third-party music agreements too.

But no, just hit everyone.
 
Because after years of people streaming on twitch, so many lives have been ruined by legal challenges.

Wait no, no lives have been ruined because of legal challenges. Nevermind.

This is simply twitch trying to fix a problem that nobody was even complaining about. If a company send a take down request, then absolutely twitch should do something. Preemptively attacking streamers before any notice, or reason, or anything at all... that's just fucked up.

edit: and he deleted his cosmo comment

he didn't delete it unless you're referring to some other comment, it just got downvoted

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2cwfu2/i_am_twitch_ceo_emmett_shear_ask_me_almost/cjjorrh

its at -59 right now
 
Overreaction.

There will be issues moving to new systems, and I expect it will be fixed.
People leaving Twitch because of these initial bumps are just going to suffer in the end with the lower viewership.

I think Cosmo’s gripe isn’t that Twitch is implementing these systems — it’s that Twitch has shown, time and time again, that they are not implementing these systems with the streamers in mind. (i.e. He linked to a post by @TotalBiscuit which basically said that Content ID is unavoidable.) It’s not the content ID, but the half-hour muted chunks, combined with the 2-hour highlights, combined with the previous chat delays, that prove that Twitch is speedrunning-unfriendly.

The bad policies, combined, got too much for him.
 
How are streamers such as "kaceytron" allowed to stream on Twitch when they are breaking your own T&C's and are profiting from it. For example, when watching a stream by herself last night entitled "Tired of people saying that I show cleavage whenever I don't" this is the what was being broadcast source http://i.imgur.com/P21KHxw.png past broadcast http://www.twitch.tv/kaceytron/b/555307469
In your own legal T&C's it is written (2nd c, down) source http://www.twitch.tv/user/legal
13. c, Content that is unlawful, libellous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, suggestive, harassing, threatening, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, inflammatory, fraudulent or otherwise objectionable;
It is quite apparent she shows no regard for this statement in her title and is playing oblivious for the views, donations and subscriptions. This in turn draws in extra viewers who are only there to inflame on her chat to try and evoke a reaction from her, resulting in more advertisement revenue.
She is also quoted in her previous broadcast as saying she abides to all Twitch T&C's time: 2:43:31
While she may be hosting gaming related content, her webcam content is extremely obscene, indecent, lewd and suggestive. The way she also speaks to her viewers in chat is inflammatory and a lot of times she is abusive to any criticism she is giving, this can be said about the people in her chat too.
During this stream, it was also noted that a member of Twitch staff and a Twitch admin were viewing the stream for around 30 minutes and no action was taken of any kind. (sorry no screen shot)
How can this be justified when someone is showing complete disregard to your T&C's and is profiting from it without consequences?
p.s Thanks for doing this AMA, it's given us all a chance to ask what we want to :)
Edit: Just to be clear , this is about someone who is breaking a websites T&C's in more than one place and getting away with it whereas other user will have the ban hammer slapped down on them for much more minor things. Not that she has boobs.
Hey mr. gameof_bones --
Not sure about this particular incident since I wasn't on the site at the time and it's the first I've heard of it. Sorry I can't be more helpful...I'll look into it.

Pretty sure there wont happen anything about that altough it should. She is making twitch money with that.

I would love to see her reaction if something would happen though, just imagine her complaining that she did not choose how her body developed and stuff like that, lol
 
Another Q&A.
Why was no advanced notice given before these policy changes were implemented? (Specifically, Justin.tv shutdown and Audible Magic muting)
Simply put: we screwed up and should have announced it ahead of time. Sorry.
 
How are streamers such as "kaceytron" allowed to stream on Twitch when they are breaking your own T&C's and are profiting from it. For example, when watching a stream by herself last night entitled "Tired of people saying that I show cleavage whenever I don't" this is the what was being broadcast source http://i.imgur.com/P21KHxw.png past broadcast http://www.twitch.tv/kaceytron/b/555307469
In your own legal T&C's it is written (2nd c, down) source http://www.twitch.tv/user/legal
13. c, Content that is unlawful, libellous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, indecent, lewd, suggestive, harassing, threatening, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, inflammatory, fraudulent or otherwise objectionable;
It is quite apparent she shows no regard for this statement in her title and is playing oblivious for the views, donations and subscriptions. This in turn draws in extra viewers who are only there to inflame on her chat to try and evoke a reaction from her, resulting in more advertisement revenue.
She is also quoted in her previous broadcast as saying she abides to all Twitch T&C's time: 2:43:31
While she may be hosting gaming related content, her webcam content is extremely obscene, indecent, lewd and suggestive. The way she also speaks to her viewers in chat is inflammatory and a lot of times she is abusive to any criticism she is giving, this can be said about the people in her chat too.

Hahaha -- all the haters only make me love Kaceytron more.

I cannot think of a more Professional female gamer. #girlgamer
 
Another Q&A.
Why was no advanced notice given before these policy changes were implemented? (Specifically, Justin.tv shutdown and Audible Magic muting)
Simply put: we screwed up and should have announced it ahead of time. Sorry.

LMAO WHAT. How do you screw that up? I almost don't buy it. In fact, no, I don't buy it because they knew full well what was going to happen.
 
I think the music issue is fair as long as they can actually keep in-game music from triggering the mute

This will never be possible. Audio is audio, and unless somehow they're changing the waveforms of in-game audio on a game by game basis which would be up to developers, any licensed music inside a game will still register as music to any Content ID system.

The best they can do is attempt to remove any original game music (i.e. game score) from the database used for matching.

Even then it'll likely be up to the developer to pursue the matter of getting their music removed if it's already in.
 
Another Q&A.
Why was no advanced notice given before these policy changes were implemented? (Specifically, Justin.tv shutdown and Audible Magic muting)
Simply put: we screwed up and should have announced it ahead of time. Sorry.

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