Twitch signs deal with National Music Publishers' Association
The agreement will be "more flexible and forgiving to creators who inadvertently or incidentally use music in their streams"
Twitch has struck an agreement with the National Music Publishers' Association concerning the use of copyrighted music on its platform.
The deal means that music publishers will be "offered an opt-in deal allowing for future collaborations," the announcement said.
In an email sent to streamers, as reported by Kotaku, it's clarified that this will make for a process that is "more flexible and forgiving to creators who inadvertently or incidentally use music in their streams than the existing process required under the DMCA and similar global laws."
In practice, that means that content creators who feature copyrighted music in their streams will be given a chance to "course correct" first, with Twitch giving a warning before removing content.
"At a high level, this new process, which is distinct from the DMCA, focuses on going forward flagrant uses of music and starts with a warning instead of penalties," Twitch continued.
NMPA president & CEO David Israelite commented: "Both NMPA and Twitch are creator-focused and our respective communities will greatly benefit from this agreement, which respects the rights of songwriters and paves the way for future relationships between our publisher members, songwriters and the service. Through our discussions, Twitch has shown a commitment to valuing musicians and to creating new ways to connect them with fans in this burgeoning and exciting space."
In recent years, Twitch has deleted thousands of videos from streamers using copyrighted music, at the request of music labels.
The streaming platform launched its Soundtrack tool last year, giving content creators access to a library of music to use on their streams. But the initiative was slammed by several music organisations in the US in an open letter.