“Hundreds” of Twitch streamers – including registered partners – have been reporting this week that they have been issued DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedowns and are having their videos pulled from the platform.
In most cases, DMCA takedowns are issued if music is being played during a stream or video. Of course, copyright owners have every right to do this, if it is their legally owned material being used, apparently however, it seems the exact specifics are not being clarified by Twitch.

For example, on my small YouTube channel I might get a claim on one of my videos with a tiny amount of views, even if that video has gone practically unnoticed over the years. In most cases you will be told exactly when during the video the copyright claim is being made, even if it’s for a few short seconds. When this happens, you can remove the music in question entirely or mute the video during certain segments.
However, it is being reported [via ComicBook] that hundreds of emails have been sent out to Twitch streaming partners to inform them that their content is being pulled from the platform, but Twitch is apparently not informing streamers of exactly what the copyright claim is being made for.
So if that’s the case, what exactly can the affected streamers do about it?
The only real specifics seemingly being given to the streamers via email is that they are being given a “one-time warning” and that they should learn about copyright law. Which as you can imagine, the copyright law as a whole is incredibly broad, so which part exactly do they need to learn or should they go out and get a degree in law?
esports consultant Rod Breslau took to Twitter to highlight the emails in question and fellow streamers have also expressed their confusion on the matter, with one Twitch streamer replying: “I also got that DMCA takedown email from twitch but there’s no way to know what was claimed or what they took down so that’s fun.”
Unless Twitch becomes clearer around the reasons why so many streamers are being issued DMCA takedowns, more and more streamers are going to get further frustrated with a situation that they currently do not know how to fix.
Hopefully Twitch will address the concerns of the many and will at the very least, give exact reasons why content is being pulled from the platform.
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