DMCA: What it is and how it Affects Content Creation

What is DMCA? DMCA, or the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, is a copyright law protecting music, movies, text, and other digital mediums that are subject to copyright licensing. The most important one to note for our purpose today is music.

Why it’s important to understand what it is: Nearly every song you hear on the radio today is covered under this law which means that they can not be played while streaming. Some streamers will split audio to avoid copyrighted songs being in VODs which would get them flagged, muted, and possibly permanently deleted. However, this is not an entirely safe option for a couple of reasons. The first being that live takedowns can and do happen. Streams have been forced to end by the streaming service for copyright violations. The second thing to note here is that the audio does not split for clips, which creates a problem for other creators as well.

When groups play together, oftentimes one party will watch clips of the other party’s reaction to a particular situation. Some creators will also pull up clip queues to keep chat entertained while they take a short break. If the clips inserted have copyrighted music in them, then they will get the other creator flagged and mute part of the VOD. This causes issues beyond just Twitch or Facebook Gaming as well. YouTube will also flag these songs and mute the video in addition to removing the creator’s ability to monetize the video.

Some people also believe that being an extremely small creator means no one will care. This is extremely untrue. Streaming platforms have an automated system that scans every video for copyright infractions and will mute or remove them regardless of how small or large a streamer is. If you play something that is DMCA, they will mute it or even flag/remove the whole VOD.

What music can you play? There is a very large variety of DMCA free music, if you know what tools are available and where to look!

*Just because a song is in a game, doesn’t make it safe. Certain games with copyrighted soundtracks will offer an option to turn on streamer mode. This mutes the copyrighted music, though it is not always a failsafe option for some games. When I played Life is Strange: True Colors a few months ago, I had creator mode on, but YouTube still flagged some of the background music. Thankfully, YT was able to just mute the background music, but that doesn’t always work.

*This list is not exhaustive by any means, but does contain some of the more user-friendly, affordable options that are available.

Spotify - Spotify is an extremely useful tool for playing DMCA free music. It also can sync with a stream deck for easier music control without having to tab out! I already use Spotify premium daily, so it was extremely easy to just set up a couple extra playlists (or favorite them) to use while streaming! The individual plan is $9.99 USD/month, and usually comes with a solid trial period!

SoundCloud is also a useful tool for finding and playing DMCA free music, as long as you know what to look for. I personally don’t dabble in SoundCloud much unless I’m listening to a song that isn’t available anywhere else so can’t personally say how easy it is to use or how much DMCA free music is on there.

StreamBeats and StreamBeats Originals- they have a TON of DMCA free music on Spotify, including several playlists! My personal favorites are the Lofi and 100 Thieves Hype Tracks playlists. One of my favorite StreamBeats artists is Ryan King! Huge perk here is that you get a lot of incredible music without paying extra for licensing.

Riot Games - They have a Creator-Safe Playlist which is available on both Spotify and SoundCloud! Which, per the official League of Legends site from Riot, “you can use any music from the Creator-Safe Playlist without any danger of demonetization or DMCA claims.” If you choose to use music outside this playlist, however, there is no guarantee on if it is safe to play on stream or not. But fret not, the Creator-Safe Playlist has over 600 songs from LoL and Valorant!

Epidemic Sound - Again, you need to pay for the rights, it’s $9 USD/month for an individual plan and you get a 30-Day free trial! You can listen through the Epidemic site or use Spotify for it! The majority of Epidemic songs are on Spotify and Epidemic has a Spotify profile with pre-made playlists as well! I run the playlists and songs from Epidemic through Spotify so I can control it through my StreamDeck. Many Epidemic songs are also on my daily listening playlist at this point too because I love them so much.

MonsterCat - again, you pay for the license, but it grants access to a very large library of music for $7.49 USD/month or $75/year. I personally have never used MonsterCat, but know some people who do and can confirm the music is pretty good! Like Epidemic, they also have a lot of their music on Spotify!

Pretzel Rocks - My least favorite option, but it is an option! They do have a decent sized library for DMCA free music. Although the vast majority of their music is noted on the site to be safe for Twitch and not YouTube, so proceed with caution if you plan on streaming to or uploading content to YouTube. There is a free plan which offers very limited use of their tracks, a $59.99 USD/year ($4.99/month) plan which gives access to mostly Twitch-safe tracks, and then a third pro plan that is $250 USD/year ($21/month).

Independent creators! There are also quite a few independent creators who make DMCA free music, typically they only ask that you credit them!

Just remember to keep an eye on where your music is coming from! Because of how licensing works, something could be safe for someone else and not you because they may pay for rights to a different company than you. I love MonsterCat songs but can’t play them on my own streams because I don’t pay for licensing with them. I can however play Epidemic songs since I do pay them for licensing. If you don’t want to pay for licensing, don’t fret! Go for options from StreamBeats or the Riot playlist and you’ll still have a great amount of music to vibe to, no matter which vibe you’re going for.