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Twitch advertising at the gaming fair E3 (archive image)
Photo: Michael Nelson / DPA
The TV platform Twitch irritated many of its users with a radical deletion campaign - and at the same time issued a clear warning.
In the past few days, numerous streamers have been informed by email that videos have been deleted from their channel because the songs played in the clips violate the US DMCA copyright law.
The gaming portal "Kotaku" assumes that thousands of videos have been removed after Twitch was warned by record labels.
The subsidiary portal of the US company Amazon did not provide the exact number in response to a request from SPIEGEL on Thursday.
A Twitch spokeswoman said, "It's important that we protect the rights of songwriters, artists and other music industry partners."
Twitch does not give its content provider a choice.
The e-mail to the channel operator states: "We are writing to you to inform you that your channel was the subject of one of these DMCA takedown notifications and that we have deleted the identified content."
One is "aware that the streamers in these cases have no chance of a reply," says the spokeswoman.
"So we see this as a one-time warning."
Twitch streamer calls action a "bloodbath"
Some users respond with criticism to Twitch's uncompromising approach.
In a tweet, e-sports expert Rod Breslau said that a "bloodbath has begun".
The streamers "are now experiencing the old-fashioned madness" of the music industry, which YouTubers have had to grapple with for years, writes Breslau.
Twitch channel operators in Germany are also affected and, as a precaution, have started to clear out their video offerings on Twitch.
The main focus here is on permanently available compilations showing highlights from the live broadcasts, some of which last for hours.
Such highlight videos are often accompanied by music.
PietSmiet's video game streamers are also heavily criticizing Twitch.
In a tweet, the Let's Play team wrote on Wednesday: "On Twitch, content is being deleted due to rights claims, without giving the creator the opportunity to submit a reply. That's shit."
The streamers fear that the deletion could also fall victim to videos that should not actually be removed.
No information about deleted videos
In addition, streamers complain that they were not even informed about which videos are specifically affected and that they are therefore unable to understand their alleged violations.
A Twitch user writes: "Twitch does not say what you deleted", but this information would be needed to prevent what was warned from happening again.
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Other streamers accuse Twitch of not being able to show a proper software detection system for copyright infringements and therefore to send the users forward.
That was "crazy", writes Twitch streamer Devin Nash.
With the deletion campaign, the life's work of some artists would also disappear.
"That is pure, gross negligence."
Twitch recommends that users find out about copyright law and use the platform's own soundtrack tool for background music, which only provides songs that can be used to accompany videos without legal problems.
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