The plague that is DMCA strikes has followed streamers from Twitch to other platforms as one of the streaming platform’s largest creators has received a DMCA notice for a year-old clip posted to his Twitter account. While Twitch streamers have spent the past couple of months scrambling to wipe copyrighted content from their channels, they may have to take the same precautions on their social media pages as well.
In October of this year, Twitch streamers began receiving DMCA strikes for videos containing copyrighted music. Their content was removed without warning, and they were issued DMCA strikes without any prior knowledge of the increased actions being taken against the usage of the copyrighted material. Streamers were encouraged to delete all past content that included copyrighted material to avoid further strikes, however, some streamers have accumulated years’ worth of content they would have to sift through. While the issues on Twitch have seemingly settled down, a new issue has arisen.
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The use of social media has become a key element for streamers who want to grow their communities. One of Twitch’s largest streamers, xQc, is one of many streamers who uploads clips from his streams to Twitter. However, xQc shared with his Twitter followers today that a clip he had posted over a year ago had been claimed by a copyright holder resulting in his first DMCA strike on Twitter. According to a notice from Twitter, xQc had been locked out of his account until reviewing the platform’s copyright policy. The notice also stated that repeat offenses will result in a suspension of the user’s account.
While Twitter DMCA strikes don’t seem to be as widespread as they are on Twitch, this could result in another DMCA bloodbath similar to the one of Twitch. If xQc has received a strike for a year-old clip from Twitch posted to Twitter, other streamers should be wary. They might as well begin the process of wiping their social media pages of clips containing copyrighted music to avoid potential account suspension.
This incident is even more proof that DMCA laws actively work against streamers and content creators. Social media platforms such as Instagram and Twitter are key to growing as a streamer regardless of the size of their communities, but DMCA strikes make it harder than ever to ensure a clip is safe to post outside of a stream. As a rule of thumb, streamers should avoid playing copyrighted audio and should avoid posting clips with copyrighted audio to Twitch to avoid DMCA strikes.
Source: xQc
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