The Artist Rights Alliance (ARA), an industry body representing songwriters and musicians, has been vocal in its criticism of Amazon, sending Jeff Bezos a letter demanding a better answer than, “I don’t know” when he was asked by the US Congress about music licensing on the Amazon-owned Twitch platform.
After yesterday’s announcement of Twitch’s music livestreams being closely integrated into the Amazon Music app, the ARA sent Bezos another letter – again asking him to answer the question, “does the Twitch platform allow users to post or stream unlicensed music?”
Twitch has recently been scanning video clips (archived sections of longer livestreams) and can remove copyrighted music from them.
In a further statement, the ARA says that livestreams are, “no substitute for a sustainable music ecosystem,” for artists, and reiterates a call for, “fair pay and fair treatment for creators.”
By connecting two quite different services, with two different approaches to music and creators, the Twitch-Amazon Music integration certainly sharpens questions about licensing in a modern, multi-platform environment.
Image by afapress / Shutterstock.com
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