The past several weeks seem to have been extremely trying for content creators on Twitch. Recently, thousands of streamers received emails from the platform itself, stating they were being issued one or more DMCA takedown notices, butTwitch failed to indicate what content was actually responsible for the violation. Naturally this angered and scared several streamers, who were then forced to go through every clip and VOD on their channel and painstakingly delete everything to avoid another violation.
Since then, theCEO of Twitch, Emmett Shear, has apologizedfor how the streaming platform handled these notices, and promised that Twitch is working on several improvements for its content creators in the future. While this promise has some players feeling somewhat better, others have continued to feel uneasy about playing any music or sound at all in their streams, including the audio coming from the game they’re playing. However, to alleviate some of this tension, Harmonix has provided content creators with guidelines on how to avoid DMCA notices while streaming its new game,Fuser.
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Streamers wishing to playFuseron streamalso cannot have co-branding or cross-promotion with other brands during their time playing. This seems to make sense, as this would be considered another form of monetization. The only provided exception to these guidelines are a list of hand selected songs that Harmonix has provided on its site. If using only these 33 songs, content creators may monetize their streams/videos.
While it’s great that Harmonix has provided a set of guidelines for content creators to use when making content aboutFuser, the rules provided seem overly strict. With so many streamers making their living off of Twitch, it may be unlikely that these creators will giveFuserthe time of day when planning their stream schedule. So whileFusermay be receiving plenty of positive reviewsfrom critics, it seems likely that it won’t be a hit on Twitch.
Fuseris available now on PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
