Twitch finally makes friends in the music industry

Twitch is trying to mend barriers with a big pillar in the music industry by announcing an agreement to “work together” with the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA). Details are vague at the moment, but the deal says they plan to “build productive partnerships between the service and music publishers” after a year of conflict over music rights.

Twitch has a long-standing controversial relationship with the music industry, which has accused the company of allowing streamers to stream copyrighted music without the proper licenses. Streamers have also come under the eye of music publishers, with some coming under waves of Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notices that have resulted in Twitch removing content from their channels.

The Amazon-owned streaming service is now trying to appease the two groups, with the deal suggesting there may be new business opportunities for publishers in the future and less takedown notices for streamers. Neither is guaranteed, however.

The only tangible announcement here is a new – and potentially more lenient – reporting process that music publishers can use to report unlicensed used songs in someone’s feed. The idea behind this, in part, is “to respond to the case where creators inadvertently or accidentally use music in their streams,” according to a press release. This process begins with a warning instead of immediate penalties, according to Twitch, which could respond to criticism from streamers whose content has been removed.

That said, this new process is separate of that in place for the DMCA, and that doesn’t change Twitch’s rules for how music can be used on the platform. And according to Billboard, Twitch is not paying for additional music licenses as part of the deal, so it’s unclear how much that will change as a result of this new partnership. If publishers opt for the new process, it could troubleshoot DMCA issues. But since this requires rights holders to register and use it in place of the traditional takedown notice, we just don’t know yet if that will happen.

The rest of the deal promises big partnerships – “from virtual shows to studio sessions, the partnerships resulting from this deal will connect the Twitch community in many ways to the music they enjoy” – but we don’t have a big deal. idea of ​​what it all comes down to.

The deal says Twitch is at least trying to address some of the issues with licensed music on the platform – and, ideally, alleviate some of the burden on streamers who are being punished for playing music on their platform. chain. But at the moment, we just don’t know what impact the deal will have.