Twitch Backtracks on Some Usage Policy Changes

Twitch is backtracking on some of the changes announced to its video-on-demand (VOD) and third-party audio usage policies on Wednesday. The company is making the move after it received some unflattering user feedback.

Making the announcement via blog post, Matthew DiPietro, Twitch's VP of Marketing & Communications, said that effective Thursday night, the newly-instated 2-hour maximum time limit on video highlights will be removed. Twitch users will now once again be able to create highlights of any length, with the assurance the videos will be saved indefinitely.

DiPietro also pointed users to the new 'appeal' button for VODs that have been flagged by the new Audible Magic audio recognition system for featuring copyrighted music. With the button, users will be more easily able to initiate the process of appealing to Twitch that their video has been incorrectly flagged, or that they have the necessary permission to use the copyrighted material.

After the policy changes announced on Wednesday, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear had held a Reddit AMA on Thursday, saying, "It's been about a year since our last AMA. A lot has happened since Twitch started three years ago, and there have been some big changes this week especially. We figured it would be a good time to check in again."

The Reddit AMA saw Shear apologising to users about the manner in which policy changes were communicated, and for not giving advance notice. "Simply put: we screwed up and should have announced it ahead of time. Sorry," said Shear.

Shear on the AMA also clarified some of the latest policy changes, reiterating what DiPietro said, and also added that Twitch has 'zero intention of flagging original in-game music' through its new audio recognition system, which would also not be used to flag copyrighted audio on live-streams.

In case you missed our previous coverage, Twitch made several policy changes earlier this week, introducing a storage time limit for past broadcasts (2-weeks for free users, 60 days for Turbo users and partners), the upcoming removal of existing past broadcasts, and the muting of copyrighted audio content in VODs via the Audible Magic audio recognition system. The company had also introduced the new Video Manager which easily let users export their broadcasts and highlights to YouTube.