Recently, Twitch has been sending out a flood of emails claiming copyright infringement, and streamers are desperately trying to find ways to remove potentially thousands of clips and countless hours of work and memorable moments.

Clips from 2017 to 2019 have been particularly targeted, but because Twitch loosely enforces its own music guidelines, some streamers have amassed vast libraries of videos containing copyrighted music that are not straightforward to remove It is not a simple matter to remove them.

Fusilie received two copyright infringement strikes on June 7, and a third would have resulted in a permaban; with over 100,000 clips, finding and removing others containing copyrighted music seems impossible. Unfortunately, she can't even see the old clips, so that's another big challenge.

This is not an isolated case. Despite streamers actively trying to protect themselves by deleting clips, Twitch is blocking their path.Twitch has stated that it is working to make the process of deleting clip archives easier, but has not yet provided an alternative

While they are working on it, streamers are still in danger of being banned or suspended, and this doesn't seem to be something people can really wait for. A better process should already be in place before this happens.

Twitch has a legal obligation to respond to copyright claims, but some streamers have been critical of its response. Previously, Twitch muted audio flagged by its content filtering system, protecting both music copyright and streamers, but now it is removing clips and giving them strikes.

Twitch advises streamers to consult its music guidelines, but much of what is prohibited occurs regularly and is largely ignored. It also does not address games that use licensed music, leaving streamers to wonder what will happen to games like Just Dance.

Licensing also changes. Games do not always get permanent rights to the music, and updates can remove songs or remove games from sale. In other words, even if streamers are free to play something like GTA 5, what is there to protect them if a rock star loses the rights to the songs that appear in their clips?

It is not clear what prompted this rash of copyright claims, but if it happens more often, Twitch will have to start clarifying some points in its guidelines.