Twitch and other online streaming platforms for video games have really taken off these past few years. There are communities crafted up with personalities entertaining viewers with a wide range of content. Mainly, these streaming platforms such as Twitch has been dedicated more towards video games. While fans can watch gameplay and interact with their favorite streamers there is a new obstacle some streamers are dealing with.
If you haven’t heard already, Twitch has been hit with countless DMCA notices for different streamers using copyrighted music. For years this wasn’t an issue as most streamers use music in the background. Through different online services such as Spotify, gaining access to different playlists and artists was never a problem and normally the music takes a backseat to the other content being displayed on the channel. Still, when labels took notice of the music being featured, they were quick to send out DMCAs, and that ultimately required Twitch to mass delete content from the website without any notice.
Twitch has since apologized to the Twitch streamer community and has been working on a better set of tools for streamers to handle the various copyrighted music found in clips to VODs. Still, this issue is worrisome as there copyrighted music found in video games as well. With some big title releases coming out with a stacked soundtrack from classic hits to new releases, streamers are wondering what some of their most anticipated video game titles will offer to those that wish to stream the gameplay.
One of those anticipated hits is CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077. Today, a new blog post has come out from the official Cyberpunk website alerting content creators of their answer to copyright music. While CD Projekt Red is encouraging players to create content, they are aware of potential copyright issues and that’s why the game will have a toggle system made specifically for content creators. Within the settings, players will be able to find Disable Copyrighted Music where you can toggle on and off. This will disable selected in-game soundtracks from playing although we’re uncertain if this system will eliminate the music from playing altogether or replace the track with something CD Projekt Red considers to be copyright free.