![]() To the extent that such a waiver is valid, it calls into question the effectiveness of the DMCA’s safe-harbor provision. Although the contents of these contracts are largely kept secretive, it follows that Twitch would avoid assuming any liability generated by the streamer, DMCA-related or otherwise. Unlike Vimeo, who permits their content creators to operate independently, Twitch contracts with its streamers to ensure streaming exclusivity, determine subscription cost splitting, and formalize their business relationship. ![]() A large part of this success is due to their viewer retention, longevity in the streaming space, and talent support. In Q3 of 2019, for example, Twitch dwarfed the combined efforts of YouTube, Facebook, and Mixer (Microsoft’s now-defunct streaming platform) by accounting for 75.6% of the total viewing hours of streams. Since its inception in 2011, Twitch has been the leader in livestreaming: it attracts the best talent and garners the most views. Although Capitol did not succeed in 2016, the door was left open for future claims against these content platforms. The court ultimately found that claim unsubstantiated. Although the court noted that platforms, like Vimeo, need not undertake self-policing to the degree advocated by Capitol, it did acknowledge that encouraging violations, in order to grow the platform’s popularity, was problematic. In a surprising decision, the Second Circuit held that Capitol’s complaint, that Vimeo exhibited willful blindness towards its users’ violations of the DMCA, was baseless. In June 2016, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit heard arguments in Capitol Records, LLC v. But it was not until about the 2010s when media giants, like Capitol Records and Warner Music Group, began to realize the extent to which they were hemorrhaging profits online. This provision would serve as the saving grace of emerging content platforms, such as YouTube, Twitch, Reddit, and others, to grow irrespective of its users’ violations, so long as it complied with takedown requests from copyright owners. Notably, the DMCA built in a “safe-harbor” provision which shielded websites that hosted user-generated, otherwise copyright infringing, content from liability. The DMCA extended copyright law to the internet age. The Digital Millennium Copyright Act is a holdover from the 1990s, when legislators scrambled to protect copyright owners online. What is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act? ![]() Although streamers escaped liability this time, the events of June have led many streamers to both speak out against the DMCA and alter the content of their streams to avoid future claims. Fortunately for many streamers, this initial wave marked the extent of the copyright claims, at least for the time being. There were potentially dozens, if not hundreds, of clips per streamer over the past two years that featured these songs with virtually no way of retroactively self-policing. Second, many of these copyright claims were imposed on clips that were created as long ago as 2017. Which, for many, would spell the end of their primary means of income. ![]() If a streamer receives three copyright strikes, their account is permanently banned from the platform. First, streamers on Twitch operate under a three-strike system. These strikes were particularly noteworthy for two reasons. Many others worried how many more strikes would follow and scrambled to delete their clips that contained copyrighted music. The suddenness of these claims left many streamers scratching their heads, as this was their first time experiencing such issues. Copyright Strikes on Twitch May Risk Breaching the Platform’s Safe-Harbor Statusīack in June, many content creators (“streamers”) on the popular livestreaming website received Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) claims on their old video clips that contained music owned by Warner Music Group.
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