Even wind noises are no longer safe on Twitch. A WoW streamer had to find this out after his video was muted.
Recently, there have been recurring reports on Twitch about streamers getting banned. Many are currently fearing for their livelihoods and are afraid that their channels will be shut down. This is due to the music industry, which is currently taking more action against copyright violations, especially in the American region.
But now there has been a curious case: A video was muted because it supposedly contained copyrighted sound effects. In the background, only the music from World of Warcraft Classic was playing – the game that was also streamed.
What happened? The Polish streamer michalronin noticed that one of his videos on Twitch was muted. This happens whenever Twitch automatically detects copyrighted music. The bizarre thing was: The streamer didn’t even have ordinary music in the background. The only sound was the background music and sounds of WoW Classic.
What was Twitch’s reasoning? In a screenshot, Michalronin then showed the reasoning. Supposedly, the sound “Medium Wind Storm with Gusts, Whistles and Low Rumble” was heard in the background – which translates to something like “Medium Wind with Gusts, Whispers, and Low Rumble” in German. The sound allegedly belongs to “The Hollywood Edge Sound Effects Library,” a database for sounds.
The system had apparently recognized this and muted the corresponding video.
Is this really protected? In many countries yes. In principle, sound recordings are protected by copyright just like recordings of entire music pieces, images, or any other artistic works. This is a reality in many countries. After all, there are entire databases for sounds that make their money selling licenses for such sounds so that developers can incorporate them into games or movies.
In addition, games and almost all their content – including music and sounds – are also protected by copyright. Developers wouldn’t need to allow streamers to present their games to the public on Twitch, at least in Europe.
Whether the Twitch system has made a mistake here or really recognized a wind effect that may have been bought by the WoW team and implemented in the game is hard to determine.
The incident shows that copyright is a complex issue and even small parts of entire works are protected and can lead to problems in publishing. This whole topic will certainly accompany us for much longer in the coming weeks and months.
What do you think of the incident? Logical that the system evaluated it this way? Or a clear error that shows the absurdity of copyright?
In WoW Classic, many are currently waiting for Naxxramas – while in Retail WoW the zombie event before Shadowlands is currently happening.
