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The recent Twitch DMCA scandal has resulted in quite a lot of criticism for Twitch and confusion for the platform’s streamers.
Considering recent events, Twitch streamer Destiny has suggested that the DMCA is useable against the platform too. After initially promising that it will automatically delete the problematic content from its streamers’ channels, the Amazon-owned company seems to have lost the plot.
Most notable streamers have deleted their VODs from the platform manually. However, various Twitch broadcasters are still getting DMCA notifications for content that no longer exists on the platform.
The videos still exist on the platform’s servers, which means the streamers are still liable to received DMCA notifications. In some cases, the VODs in question were deleted years ago!
Destiny explains that Twitch’s DMCA is useable against the platform to have their protections revoked
However, the most recent development has led to Twitch streamer Steven Kenneth “Destiny” Bonnell II, suggesting that this might turn out to be a good thing for the overall streaming community.
According to Destiny, once a streamer deletes his VODs from Twitch, the platform does not have the right to retain them on its servers, saying that “it is not a matter of customers or users hosting content on their site, it’s a matter of you retaining it.”
He explained:
“I wonder if a streamer deleted their content off the site, and Twitch held on to that content, I wonder if you could flip the DMCA and use it on Twitch itself, and have their safe harbor protections revoked. Because at that point, it is not a matter of customers or users hosting content on their site, it’s a matter of you retaining it.”
The argument against Twitch streamers has been that they are using content that they do not own in music that belongs to various record labels. However, once they delete this content, the platform ideally should not have any rights to keep this content on its servers.
Currently, this is leading to DMCA notifications even if the streamer has deleted the content beforehand. However, if Twitch retains this content, the platform is doing so even though it no longer has such rights.
Destiny’s take on the matter makes a lot of sense, considering that some VODs retained by Twitch were deleted years ago.
The revocation of the safe harbor protection, which online services like Twitch have to protect themselves from copyright liabilities, would see the liability fall on the organization instead of its streamers.
