The Twitch Digital Millennium Copyright Act drama continues. Since May, the streaming platform has been overwhelmed with DMCA requests. What was only a couple hundred requests is now “thousands”. Basically, this act includes a set of laws that lets users create their own content. Twitch defines the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in their official statement as:
A set of US laws that allows you to create and share content on digital service providers like Twitch. We comply with the DMCA and similar laws worldwide. Part of complying means that when a copyright holder thinks a streamer has used their content without permission, we have a process in place for them to be able to request the content be taken down.
Twitch
They have another page on their website extensively highlighting the guidelines and how they go about handling a request for removal. Handling any potential content that is not meeting these guidelines includes “removing the content, sharing the details with the channel owner, and tracking the allegation”.
These thousands of new requests might be stressful for the Twitch platform, but they’ve affected streamers as well. Moreover, many streamers now have muted videos, due to potential copyright.
The response? Some have taken to streaming totally silently, and the hashtag ##DMCAsoundoff has appeared on Twitter in response to the way Twitch has handled things.
It’s unclear what will happen next or how long this soundoff will continue, but it’s certainly added to the already complicated series of events.
