Twitch: Changes To Audio In VODS

Themacabre said:
Just because I'm having some trouble getting one thing, maybe someone can explain it.

So, a video is uploaded that happened to have some music in the background, and then gets muted because of it. Okay.

Can anyone tell me how that helps the copyright holder in any way whatsoever? Like, they are doing it to protect them from what, exactly?

This seems a lot like that one asshole kid you knew growing up that would ask to play with a ball that you and some friends were playing with, and then he promptly throws it over a fence and runs away.

"No! It's my music and you can't have it!" *throws own music into a fire*
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The thing is that just by streaming games or anything with a copyright attached to it, it's already technically illegal. All these game streams and the foundations of Twitch (and Youtube to a certain extent) exist in legal gray areas, but it's up to copyright holders to contest these things. Once google bought youtube they had to implement some sort of system immediately because there's now ample incentive for rights holders to sue youtube, because youtube is now google and google has a ton of money, and I imagine Twitch is in a similar situation.

Basically, because of how awful copyright laws are, content providers have to bend over backwards because huge swaths of content on the internet is technically illegal, and rights holders have a legal obligation to atleast attempt to enforce their copyright or else they become meaningless.

As awful as it is for Twitch, I have a feeling it's a shared fate for any sort of streaming site that gets large enough or wealthy enough. At some point they simply have too much to lose and once people know you have money they will sue you.
 
RiccochetJ said:
Anybody with half a brain could see that this would eventually happen. It appears that he's actually one of the few streamers out there that understands reality.

People who are saying that they're going over to Hitbox with the expectation that it'll be different are sorely mistaken. Eventually Hitbox will be dealing with the exact same shit Twitch is.
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The issue here shouldn't be that Twitch is bad for doing this. The issue here should be how cancerous (this may be a poor word to use, but I do to think it summarizes modern copyright issues) and atrocious present day copyright law is, which has caused Twitch to do this.

Bailing to other sites will make them succumb to the same problem here, so the thing to do is to deal with what makes this a problem in the first place. I see a lot of people failing to see this.
 
Foffy said:
The issue here shouldn't be that Twitch is bad for doing this. The issue here should be how cancerous (this may be a poor word to use, but I do to think it summarizes modern copyright issues) and atrocious present day copyright law is, which has caused Twitch to do this.

Bailing to other sites will make them succumb to the same problem here, so the thing to do is to deal with what makes this a problem in the first place. I see a lot of people failing to see this.
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There's only so much people can do to petition laws to be changed. It might be short-term thinking to jump ship but in this case I can't really blame them. Twitch has been in a bad state for a while (delays, constant buffering, VODs not actually being saved etc.) and is only making their service worse.
 
Foffy said:
The issue here shouldn't be that Twitch is bad for doing this. The issue here should be how cancerous (this may be a poor word to use, but I do to think it summarizes modern copyright issues) and atrocious present day copyright law is, which has caused Twitch to do this.

Bailing to other sites will make them succumb to the same problem here, so the thing to do is to deal with what makes this a problem in the first place. I see a lot of people failing to see this.
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it's also a symptom of startup culture and webapp businesses in general. these companies deliberately start out with an unsustainable business model that's entirely built around gaining a huge user base while losing money until they can get bought out or go public and make the initial investors insanely rich. twitch was never going to be self-sustainable as-is, and anyone buying them would have to make them profitable eventually thus "ruining" them.

you'd think people would be used to this after basically every other major web platform has gone through the same cycle. we need to come up with a better way of doing this, or somehow get people to actually pay for online services (fucking lol).
 
I mostly watch maximilian_dood, and all his stuff is doing ok with the exception of that one time he played Def Jam: Fight for NY, and then there's a chunk missing for obvious music related reasons.

My heart goes out to everyone affected. This came about without any kind of warning, and is quite extreme to say the least. The same thing will happen to hitbox if they get too large, mark my words. It's just the way this system works.
 
if Audible is really scraping Soundcloud, that's a whole new can of worms

I know I've got some musician friends who would shut down their account if true (they would be happy to have their music on streams, any exposure is good exposure)
 
atomsk said:
if Audible is really scraping Soundcloud, that's a whole new can of worms

I know I've got some musician friends who would shut down their account if true (they would be happy to have their music on streams, any exposure is good exposure)
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Unless Soundcloud now technically publishes the music on their service by some hidden clause in their TOS, I don't think this would be legal.
 
Twitch just shot themselves in the foot.

I don't know how much the rest of you know about streaming culture (I'm an expert), but honor and shame are huge parts of it. It's not like it is on YouTube where you can become successful by being an asshole. If you screw someone over while streaming, you bring shame to yourself, and the only way to get rid of that shame is repentance.

What this means is the streaming public, after hearing about this, is not going to want to stream on Twitch, nor will they visit twitch for past broadcasts. This is HUGE. You can laugh all you want, but Twitch has alienated an entire market with this move.

Twitch, publicly apologize and reverse your policy or you can kiss your business goodbye.

I'm still angry
 
Foffy said:
Wow, he has similar numbers to what he gets on Twitch if the number he has on Hitbox stays where it is (1,000+)...

Yeah, big guys can transfer pretty easily.
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It's not really surprising, to be honest, when you consider how the viewer base for speedrunners has had issues with Twitch for a long time and where the viewers generally come from.
 
Revven said:
It's not really surprising, to be honest, when you consider how the viewer base for speedrunners has had issues with Twitch for a long time and where the viewers generally come from.
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I think thats part of it. But I think also (unlike youtube) the userbase of twitch is a lot more in touch with the ongoings on internet.

They would be more willing to migrate if the people they follow do.
 
I think speed runners will be the first to move. This change affects them the most of any streamers. They also probably have the easiest time moving to a new system, since their viewers will go wherever people speedrun and it's a talent not any ol' streamer can do, so the conditions are there.

The people like LethalFrag and Lirik who make their primary income from Twitch will probably be the last to leave, if they ever do.
 
Well that didn't take long


4Dd1cZe.jpg
 
Is there a comprehensive list of content that's being flagged yet, or a list of games that are "unsafe" to play like Rock Band and GTA? It's probably a bit soon to have anything like that, but I do tend to underestimate how fast you Internet guys work.
 
call_kotaku said:
The thing is that just by streaming games or anything with a copyright attached to it, it's already technically illegal. All these game streams and the foundations of Twitch (and Youtube to a certain extent) exist in legal gray areas, but it's up to copyright holders to contest these things. Once google bought youtube they had to implement some sort of system immediately because there's now ample incentive for rights holders to sue youtube, because youtube is now google and google has a ton of money, and I imagine Twitch is in a similar situation.

Basically, because of how awful copyright laws are, content providers have to bend over backwards because huge swaths of content on the internet is technically illegal, and rights holders have a legal obligation to atleast attempt to enforce their copyright or else they become meaningless.

As awful as it is for Twitch, I have a feeling it's a shared fate for any sort of streaming site that gets large enough or wealthy enough. At some point they simply have too much to lose and once people know you have money they will sue you.
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Its is not technically or otherwise illegal. thats the whole point of being in the grey area. until someone gets a case all the way it is definitely not ilegal. companies of course would rather side on the side of caution and other companies will try to force the misconception that its illegal.

At least as far as i understand i am no lawyer. we have some in here so perhaps they could shed some light.
 
Thores said:
Is there a comprehensive list of content that's being flagged yet, or a list of games that are "unsafe" to play like Rock Band and GTA? It's probably a bit soon to have anything like that, but I do tend to underestimate how fast you Internet guys work.
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It muted random segments of my TLOU gameplay. Both single player AND Multiplayer. All of it was in game audio.
 
Thores said:
Is there a comprehensive list of content that's being flagged yet, or a list of games that are "unsafe" to play like Rock Band and GTA? It's probably a bit soon to have anything like that, but I do tend to underestimate how fast you Internet guys work.
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Here's a simple list of do's and don'ts:

DON'T:
  • stream videogames containing music
  • play anything else but royalty-free music as background noise
  • sing or hum anything

DO:
  • stream text adventures

Soka said:
Hitbox is pretty nice. Never seen it before. I wonder if more people will switch over to it.
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Entirely depends on the content creators. The audience will go where the content is.

If Cosmo, Siglemic and GDQ move their streams to hitbox.tv, people will go there. If Dan and MANvsGAME move to hitbox.tv, many of their fans will seek them out there. But many will also just find a new streamer on Twitch. It's a risky move for any one person, the Youtubers who fled to Twitch to escape the content matching nightmare on YT can tell you how hard it is to keep your userbase up moving to a (comparatively) smaller site.

The ones who could do a real difference (imo) are the esports giants. Riot, Blizzard, MLG and Valve. If they were to put their official tournament streams on hitbox.tv instead of twitch, that'd be a huge blow to twitch. I assume twitch is aware of this as well and has special deals in place to prevent that from happening.
 
I'll give twitch credit. When I heard about the Google deal I expected like most people they would be bending to their will on vods. I also expected that Google's ideas on how to placate companies that send DMA claims would be the same as on youtube and thus screwing the content creator out of any revenue.

But muting audio is sort of an ok short term compromise. It's certainly better than what is going on with youtube but I'm sure there are a bunch of vods that are completely gutted because you can't hear someone explain something they are trying to teach or describe while they have background music playing.
 
Is twitch in panic mode?

https://plus.google.com/+RonAmadeo/posts/e5VJHRYsNEE

I don't see a company prepping for a Google takeover, I see panic. Panic and a lack of understanding of what it should be doing. I think Google would want to keep all the old data instead of deleting it and enforce the DMCA on existing videos by processing takedown requests as they come in, which is all the law requires.

Part of me thinks the Google deal fell through or something and this is Twitch's attempt to tighten down costs and try to stand on its own.

It's just weird that all of a sudden there are all these changes over at Twitch and all of them seem to be misguided, harmful to the service, and don't really solve any of Twitch's problems.

I see three instances of cutting storage costs and one ham-fisted misapplication of copyright enforcement, none of which smell like Google to me. Thoughts?
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It absolutely makes sense for Twitch to scrub out VODs altogether if a Youtube deal is in the works. Considering that it's common practice for streamers to export their recordings to Youtube for more ad revenue (and a better and more convenient viewing experience), it would be redundant to keep archives in both places after a merger.

On the other hand, though, I have no idea what the ramifications are for streamers who lock high-quality archives behind a subscription, so maybe it's more haphazard and less thought-out than it seems to me at first glance.
 
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