Twitch Begins Silencing Videos With Audible Magic: Making Everyone Worse Off, Because Copyright Law Sucks
from the not-how-to-do-it dept
As a whole bunch of people on my Twitter feed are letting me know, video game streaming company Twitch* (read disclosure below!) has announced that it has turned on Audible Magic to begin silencing "Video on Demand" videos that make use of copyright-covered music -- including in-game music. This only covers the video on demand (stored) videos, rather than the live streams that Twitch is probably most well known for. As Twitch's General Counsel Boo Baker explains:We’ve partnered with Audible Magic, which works closely with the recorded music industry, to scan past and future VODs for music owned or controlled by clients of Audible Magic. This includes in-game and ambient music. When music in the Audible Magic database is detected (“Flagged Content”), the affected portion of the VOD will be muted and volume controls for that VOD will be turned off. Additionally, past broadcasts and highlights with Flagged Content are exportable but will remain muted.This, quite reasonably, has many folks up in arms -- with Felicia Day making the point in the most humorous of ways: "So Twitch has become a silent movie company now?" That's because pretty much every video game has some music, and it's unlikely (at best) that users of Twitch cleared that music. In the past, we've seen some similar issues with YouTube's ContentID system flagging similar "Let's Play" videos on that site.
The Audible Magic technology will scan for third party music in 30 minute blocks — if Audible Magic does not detect its clients’ music, that portion of the VOD will not be muted. If third party audio is detected anywhere in the 30-minute scanned block, the entire 30 minutes will be muted.
Really, what this seems to demonstrate is the failure of the "one-size filter fits all" world that the legacy content industry lives in. The music and movie industries have long demanded such filters, sometimes arguing (though failing) that the current DMCA requires filters like Audible Magic or Content ID. US copyright law currently does not require such a thing, though you know that the industry is pushing hard to get that into any copyright reform bill. And, for all the problems of ContentID (and there are many), it's the kind of solution that you can see often does make sense in a YouTube world (though it has way too many false positives).
However, when it comes to Twitch, this kind of solution seems to make no sense at all. People are not going to Twitch to hear music. They're going to see video games. In fact, this kind of solution on Twitch seems inherently counterproductive for just about everyone. These days musicians want their music in video games because it's fantastic for those musicians, both making them money and giving them a ridiculous amount of exposure. There are even entire discussions for indie musicians about how to get their music into video games because it's such an important promotional avenue.
Those musicians aren't hurt by Twitch videos. They're hurt by silent Twitch videos, meaning fewer people hear the music.
A fairly strong case can be made that in-game and ambient video game music on Twitch is fair use. It seems to be clearly transformative in the same sense that scanning whole books to create a searchable index is transformative fair use or that a book of magazine covers of movie monsters is transformative fair use, or that a book of concert posters is transformative fair use. In each case, while the entire work is used, and the original may have been licensed, the use here is for an entirely different purpose.
And yet, with this move, Twitch seems to be inherently stating that fair use for the audio is an afterthought, rather than a key component to what it's doing.
Given the various lawsuits against other video sites, it's quite likely that Twitch was facing serious legal pressure to make this move. As we've noted, the music industry has repeatedly made arguments in other lawsuits that such filtering was necessary. Just recently, video site Vimeo announced it, too, was using Audible Magic. And, for years, legacy content players have insisted that using such a tool was required.
But it's not. There's nothing in the law that requires a site to do this. And even if you can make the case that it makes sense for general interest user-generated video sites, that's simply not the case with Twitch, whose whole purpose is to stream video from video games. It's yet another case of taking a broad maxim ("video sites should use automated filtering to silence or take down "copyrighted" material") to extreme and ridiculous ends where it doesn't make sense at all.
In other words, it's another example of the pressures and risks of today's copyright laws getting in the way of a useful innovation, leading to a result that is actually worse for everyone.
From a pure "avoiding liability" position, you could see why Twitch would make this decision. Assuming that some recording industry lawyers were pressuring the company, arguing that continuing to allow those videos without a fingerprinting solution put it at risk of losing its DMCA safe harbors. Because that's the kind of argument an RIAA or an ASCAP might make. And this is really a big part of the problem with copyright law today (and especially statutory damages). Even if Twitch believes that not having such a tool is okay, it might still get taken to court and could face a massive judgment if a court decides the other way. Thus, all of the ridiculous incentives of copyright law today push Twitch to make use of this solution that, without any question, makes everyone worse off. It harms musicians. It harms Twitch. It harms video game fans. It harms Twitch's users. It harms video games. Who does it benefit besides Audible Magic and maybe some lawyers?
Copyright remains totally broken.
* Disclosure: As you may know, just a couple of weeks ago, Twitch announced that they were providing matching donations for our net neutrality crowdfunding campaign, something we are quite thankful for. That said, the company's support of that effort doesn't change our views at all on this being a dumb move that harms everyone.
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Filed Under: copyright, fair use, filtering, fingerprinting, lets play, music, streaming, video games
Companies: audible magic, twitch
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It's no secret there's discussion of a possible buyout by Google.
I get the article's position of leaving Google out of it, since it is just a rumor, but it's also misleading in this regard because of the influence Google has on this potential deal.
I highly doubt Twitch would have made a single change to its business model if Google didn't come looking.
If copyright law is this powerful as to require the silence, Twitch would have never existed in the first place.
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There have been a lot of rumors, but it's pretty broad speculation to argue that *rumors* of a deal would lead to this. In fact, one could make an argument that the fact that Twitch went with Audible Magic could be seen as signs of *not* doing a deal, since as soon as they're a part of YouTube, they'd likely strip out Audible Magic and go with ContentID. So why go through the hassle of setting up Audible Magic just to switch to ContentID a few weeks later?
So, yeah, I'd thought about adding some sort of footnote to make the point I just made here, but it really seemed beside the point.
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Can't you just admit that Google is paying you to say this kind of thing and they are behind a totally different company that is rumored to possibly be on the radar of Google for a buyout signing a deal for a content matching system that is different than the one Google uses so they can piss off as much of their audience as they can before the buyout is completed?
This is obviously a misinformation campaign that has been handed down to you by your Google corporate masters.
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Tell you what, present your evidence, or at least come up with a conspiracy theory that's not nonsensical.
"signing a deal for a content matching system that is different than the one Google uses so they can piss off as much of their audience as they can before the buyout is completed?"
...and then... what? It's the fact that the filtering exists in the first place that's the problem, not the choice of vendor. Unless you're trying to say that Google will remove all filtering if the deal goes through, rather than just use their own, this is not a particularly compelling conspiracy. Given Google's own history, that particular scenario is unlikely.
Unless you have something approaching evidence to present, of course. Hopefully better than the half-assed mundanity you've tried to pass off as evidence previously.
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And TERRORISM!!!!! AHHHH!!!!!!
I didn't think I needed a sarcmark on that first post.
Gotcha.
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It is getting hard to tell around here...
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http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/07/unconfirmed-report-says-google-has-just-bought-twitc h-for-1b/
And Justin.tv is shutting down, and transferring all accounts to twitch with no reason given, and despite the fact that Twitch.tv does not allow streaming of the content that Justin.tv allows:
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/08/streaming-video-site-justin-tv-announces-closure-effect ive-immediately/
And that Twitch is removing long term archive of past broadcasts and crippling highlights, telling people "you can upload your full past broadcasts to youtube":
http://blog.twitch.tv/2014/08/update-changes-to-vods-on-twitch/#comment-1530435147
You're being pretty willfully blind if you think this has nothing to do with the Google buyout.
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That's one way of looking at it. There are others.
What's funny is that the same criticisms in the article are largely applicable whether or not Google are involved. Yet, people are trying to redirect attention away from those and on to blaming another company. One that's also been criticised roundly in the past for the same actions.
Interesting, don't you think?
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It's been a couple weeks since the Google buyout was "confirmed":
http://venturebeat.com/2014/07/24/googles-1b-purchase-of-twitch-confirmed-joins-youtube- for-new-video-empire/
and suddenly the company rumored to have been bought starts going through sweeping changes. Adding an easily integrated, off the shelf solution for censoring audio of stored video. Removing long term storage of raw streams, and crippling the length of highlighted videos, telling people if they need the service that was previously provided to just use the services of the company said to have just bought them. Killing off the general streaming branch of their company, telling people 'Oh, don't worry, we're transferring your accounts to twitch. Just remember, Twitch only allows videogame streams, so those table top gaming sessions which are the only thing you've been using us to stream are not allowed.' It's not hard to see that something major has changed in the background. Given that Google is rumored to have purchased them, and that as you say, Google has been criticized for the same actions in the past, it's no surprise that people conclude that Twitch is merely bringing itself into alignment with it's new owner's desires and lay the blame appropriately.
The reason the first comment has to do with the buyout is that unlike other sites reporting on this, Techdirt declined to mention the Google buyout rumors as being the possible cause, and then Mike continued to deny the possibility in the comments.
Which is kind of problematic from the standpoint that he's blaming Twitch for what many see as likely being the fault of Google. And as you can see, attempting to ignore the rumors instead of acknowledging them as a possible cause; tends to make the following conversation about how they're ignoring who is really to blame for the new policies, rather than about the new policies themselves.
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If I had written the article, I'd have done the same. I wouldn't want to misdirect with rumours and guesses as to a "real" cause, I'd stick to the known, undisputed facts - that Twitch are making the changes.
The reaction to this, however, is pretty silly. Whether Twitch or Google are ordering the changes, Twitch are making them. The same criticisms apply whoever is ordering them. Sorry if this wasn't reported in the way you'd personally demand, but the conversation is ridiculous.
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However that's not what I said, I said that the rumors say a deal has been confirmed. Aka, that a deal has been made and Google has purchased Twitch, which is different than the previous rumors of a deal being in the works.
Given all the other changes, it's hardly something to dismiss out of hand the way you seem to prefer to do.
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It may not technically be what you said, but your subsequent statements only make sense if what you said was that the deal was confirmed, so you were clearly taking the rumor as fact.
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Is it possible that this is because of a Google buyout? Yes. But there is no direct evidence of that, so assuming as much would be wrong.
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https://www.audiblemagic.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/AM_Copyright_Compliance_Data_Sheet.pdf
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It's no secret there's discussion of a possible buyout by Google."
Do you have any evidence that Google are actually requesting this, or is it only your speculation based on the proximity of these two events? If the latter, why is it "nefarious" not to have come to the same assumption based on lacking evidence?
"I highly doubt Twitch would have made a single change to its business model if Google didn't come looking."
Other sites have come under attack for far sillier reasons. I'd be surprised if the RIAA wasn't making Twitch a prime target after its successes at crippling other services, especially as some gaming companies have shown no problems attacking videos of their own games.
"If copyright law is this powerful as to require the silence, Twitch would have never existed in the first place."
Nor would YouTube, Soundcloud, etc. We know this, the **AAs are still trying to catch up with reality. In the meantime, they are apparently choosing to lose revenue for all parties by changing their practices rather than fight. Sad, but there you go.
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Why not let Twitch take the heat before the buyout, giving people the opportunity to leave before Google does it to them.
Either way, the bottom line is the users are getting screwed.
It just feels wrong the wrong company will take the heat for it, especially if the rumors end up true.
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Copyright Killed the Video Star
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Now to the funny part...
Dan @Dansgaming
God just muted my Twitch stream for copyright on the sound of flowing water :-(
@bacond0nut
So Twitch sets up an automatic copyright flag system, which proceeds to flag their own video. GG. pic.twitter.com/ekaFHqArhJ
and... there is some good too!
@Bob42jh
Twitch streamers are free to use any CCR music, no red tape. No copyright BS claims... http://cultclassicrecords.bandcamp.com
@Monstercat
Discussing our Twitch music use policies and reasoning here: http://www.reddit.com/r/Twitch/comments/2cty32/monstercat_catalogue_700_songs_for_twitch/ …
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That has gone beyond 'protecting' copyrighted content into the the realm of extra judicial punishment, or even an attempt to destroy a competitor to the traditional content industry.
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Re:
It's also total bullshit. But you probably already knew all of this.
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Where's the app?
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Re: Where's the app?
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140727/12322628030/killing-golden-goose-copyright-holders- demand-more-cash-even-as-streaming-music-services-struggle-to-be-profitable.shtml#c766
It's not just a matter of 'who' to boycott, it's a matter of 'what' to boycott. It's not just a 'company' that we want to avoid supporting it's their practices that we want to avoid supporting. The practice of (implicitly) releasing your content under an 'all rights reserved' license by not explicitly using a better license is bad no matter who does it.
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The question is...
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In part, psychological warfare
Rather than actually calling it what it is, and educating people about the subtle legal issues, the safe route is to claim that the response is a necessary and valid thing.
An example of the problem at work, from the first time I came across something like this and it really bothered me, is from Sprint. I got a Samsung phone on which they had disabled a trivial Android setting - shutter sound. After spending a bit of time scratching my head about why I could not even find the setting, I went searching the forums and FAQs for the answer. What I found shocked me. They turned off the ability to set "none" as the shutter sound on the camera because they stated that they were legally required to do so. By whom, I do not know. The official answer was short on specifics. My understanding (at the time, and probably still true) is that there is no legal requirement for an electronic camera manufacturer to simulate an analog camera shutter to warn people that their picture is being taken, but that is flat out what Sprint claimed they were bound by. I rooted my phone and fixed the problem. Most people won't.
My take on this is that a company that simplifies a legal question in this way, to make it easily understandable as a binary right/wrong issue, plays directly into the hand of their opponent.
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Re: In part, psychological warfare
Carriers often disable basic functionality. This is one of the reasons why the first thing I do with a phone is replace the OS with real Android rather than the bastardized versions that the carriers put on there.
"they stated that they were legally required to do so."
They are not wrong -- there are many jurisdictions where the shutter sound is legally required (Japan springs to mind, but there are lots of others).
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Re: In part, psychological warfare
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That's what Twitch just did with this decision. People aren't going to stick around with them, people will find a better video streaming site that doesn't censor their sound in the name of copyright.
Twitch could have overtaken Youtube as the place to go for videos of videogames, but not anymore after this bad decision.
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Ah dammit
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They could make this all go away
"Twitch is the world's leading video platform and community for gamers". If a video game producer wants to advertise their game, either on the site, through user uploads or community groups dedicated to the game, they need to agree to allow members of the community/site "fair use" access to ALL the content in those games.
It would fix this problem for 90% of Twitch users.
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Repeat after me (once again)
Which wouldn't be all that hard, actually.
But it won't happen.
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Re: Repeat after me (once again)
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Music rights
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Twitch competitors already getting overloaded
Looks like some of Twitches start up competitors are already having server capacity trouble from the exodus of twitch users.
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Re: Twitch competitors already getting overloaded
Yes, yes, I know that's overly lenient, but what can I say? I have soft streak.
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Bad choice of names.
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Re: Bad choice of names.
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Kickstarter wanted
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Re: Kickstarter wanted
This wouldn't help with Twitch, because the actually important part of the audio is the commentary. You can't replace the commentary.
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If Audible Magic were truly magical...
Audible Magic has a perfect sample of the protected audio on their servers, and they are detecting a subset of it on the offending video + audio clip.
Instead of completely muting the audio, Audible Magic would use "noise cancellation" math to cancel out just the protected audio, leaving the game sounds & narration intact.
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Infringement
It currently only covers VoD, though that is probably because it is significantly easier to tackle. Implementing a system to handle live stream infringement is going to take a awhile. Though they could probably acquire licenses for that fairly easily.
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Re: Infringement
is that REALLY what twitch was about ? people were downloading a crappy recording of a stupid video which had some shitty song in the background and THAT was depriving the MAFIAA of a sale ? ? ?
r u SERIOUSLY saying that ? ? ?
(and -no- i DON'T care what 'the law' is; 'the law' is MEANINGLESS because it ONLY works for the 1%, and works against the 99%, 'the law' DESERVES no respect under lawless Empire...)
using NOTHING other than uncommon common sense, you SHOULD be able to see how this is a losing proposition for SOCIETY; and the ONLY ones who 'win' are the MAFIAA... society as a whole GAINS NOTHING, and loses a LOT...
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Re: Re: Re: Infringement
Also: Learn what 'fair use' is and how it applies here.
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I just hope Twitch tries to deflect blame by tattling on whatever company put them up to it. Nintendo, maybe? They've been pulling a lot of that sort of garbage lately. Normally I'd say Sony, but the PS4's controller has a dedicated "upload gameplay video" button; Sony's not stupid enough to spend a lot of money making it easier for people to upload video and then spend a lot more money to try and stop people from uploading video, right?
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Not unless it was part of their nefarious plan to increase the statistics of verified copyright infringement, so they could use said evidence to justify more draconian copyright laws. No, they would never do that.
Remember, just because they gave you the button doesn't mean you have also purchased the requisite (and soon to be mandatory) license to push/use it.
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I think we've seen plenty of disruptive startups who've been crushed by giving in to pressure like this, rather than fighting it out - when you give the copyfraud alliance an inch, they'll take mile after mile, and will sue you into the ground the moment you stop giving it to them.
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Copyright: The Prohibition of the 21st Century
The webmasters should also join the fight. They also had to learn the hard way by being forced to mute said game footage out of paranoia of getting sued. If the way things are going continue, they're going to be forced to watch their labor of love go up in smoke by force because they failed a spot check.
If both don't realize what the true problem is and try to actually do something about it, then they'll continue to endure an era that makes the Prohibition Era seem benevolent in retrospect.
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TechDirt is about as unbiased as you can get
However the most notable part of the story is meta. The disclosure that the company who is the subject of this article's shaming gave money to TechDirt to support their reporting. Gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling that the $210 I've given was well-spent.
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Considering the DMCA's safe harbors against vicarious liability are not contingent upon installing fingerprinting technology or doing any kind of preemptive blocking, how likely do you think would be such an outcome?
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As an example, consider Veoh, who despite winning every case against them, was still driven into bankruptcy due to being forced to defend themselves in court again, and again, and again.
So whether or not they'd win in court, there's still a good chance that, if they tick off the wrong people/groups, they, and any other company without a massive warchest for legal funds, could be driven into the ground, hence why they're being so careful and bowing down to pseudo-legal requests like this.
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This has not stopped people that browse around here to buy twitch followers. Although the sound part might be annoying, still lots of people depend on the network to survive.
Nevertheless, whatever plans they have, millions of individuals still rate there as the best game streaming platform.
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