Using Copyrighted music

arlimist

If I would happen to play copyrighted music on my channel, if I add a disclaimer stating that I own nothing from the song, take no credit, etc. Would I be able to play that music on my channel?

Thanks

~Arlimist

PIPe

No, copyright holders can fill DMCA report and take the channel down. You are never safe unless you have permission directly from the copyright holder, publisher or band. 

If you own those rights, you can freely play those songs.

bgeorge

For some music licenses such as Creative Commons, providing credit to the artist is enough. Most music does not fall under that category however. To be absolutely safe you would need to obtain broadcast rights from the artist or publisher.

arlimist

So as far as permission goes, if I got permission from the Band / Copyright holder, would I have to report it to twitch so they don't take down my channel because of it, not too sure if Twitch will do that.

bgeorge

No, you do not need to report it to Twitch since they are not the ones that close channels for DMCA violation. Hopefully the right holder will not take it down if you have permission. If they do and you had permission then you have a legal recourse to appeal.

arlimist

Alright, thank you sir, for the information, I sent my email to the bands Publisher / Copyright holder a little bit ago. Hopefully it all works out. 

Thanks again for the help.

~Arlimist

totalgabe

ok how about live streaming stuff like Pandora?  or my local radio station. how would that work?

havokk

@totalgabe, If you do not have a rebroadcasting license (different than owning the album) everything still applies. Infact pandora has a business version that offers such licenses.

More info here: http://support.twitch.tv/discussion/comment/112/#Comment_112

itruthful

You can buy music that give you broadcasting rights such as Approaching Nirvana. Seen a lot of YouTubers and streamers use such music a lot recently, all you have to do is buy the music and show the song title and artist in the video. 

:)

ot4net

But i hear on almost every stream i watch music in background, and im sure they dont have any broadcasting right, man we are all just streames from at home (this is what twitch is for right)... ok there are some big streamchannels like gamespot or some tournament streams but the main streames are just the normal gamers hwo like to stream what they play. So what about all the streams that play music while afk or just while playing starcraft 2 or something. They can all get arrested? or at least get legal actions from some company? cant twitch do there something? Twitch is a home for gamers, we are not some muiscstation or trying to make money by broadcasting the music... i know you cant say to much about it because in terms of law they will always win, so we just need to "hope" they put a blind eye on it?

Fire

@ot4net just don't play it if you don't own the rights to it to be safe.

bgeorge

Many streams chose to take the risk (or don't know of the risk) and stream copyrighted music even if their channel could be potentially closed permanently. DMCA takedowns for music don't happen very often but they do happen. For example, the channel of a friend of mine was recently closed because of background music the SA:MP server he plays was as playing.

DMCA is a law so while you might not get arrested for streaming music, the copyright holder could still technically take you to count if they wanted to pursue damages. Twitch is legally required to comply with DMCA takedown requests for risk liability themselves (safe harbor). 

There isn't much Twitch can do behind educating users about the risks. They could potentially purchase a blanket license for all of the streams to play music from a publisher as an approved collection of music but the costs for that would be extremely high.

verndroid

Worst part about all this license nonsense is that the music playing in the background can often spur listeners to actually buy that music and as such actually work as an advertisement for the artist/copyright holder. But do they see it like that ? oh no they don't. !

Fire

@verndroid I know! It's a terrible business idea, the amount of people that go "what song is this? I want it on itunes" is much higher than people realize.

verndroid

Yeah. Every time you have a stream with more than 10 viewers AND music you get those questions. They all want to know what song it is and as you say often want to get it for themselves. It is amazing how a business catering so much to young people can be so narrow-minded when it comes to marketing.

Just realized that Pandora is no longer available in the EU and thus their business license is of no use to us EU types. That license was my fall back and now it is gone. :-) Back to the drawing board.

odeyssus

I asked this in another thread, but has it been confirmed that a Pandora Business License is adequate and legal to play on Twitch.tv?

Thanks, 

Odey

bgeorge

I asked this in another thread, but has it been confirmed that a Pandora Business License is adequate and legal to play on Twitch.tv?

Thanks, 

Odey

You should contact Pandora about that since they are granting you the license. 

bassinvadersmusic

Even if your streaming music as a Radio of sorts?

Fire

@bassinvadersmusic it doesn't matter why you're streaming it, unless you have proper licensing the chance of being dmca'd exists.