It’s been a tough few days for Twitch creators. There’s been a “sudden influx” of copyright claims on their older videos, forcing creators to rush to delete years old Clips. Twitch is looking into ways to give creators more control over their Clips.

According to The Verge, Twitch streamers currently face a ton of copyright claims due to the DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), with the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) listed as the complainant. These claims are forcing Twitch creators to take down the Clips. Primarily, the Clips facing copyright claims are Clips of broadcasts that contain copyrighted music from 2017 and 2019.

Streamers, however, don’t create Clips; Twitch viewers do. Clips are very short as well, running no longer than 60 seconds. It’s a clip to highlight some memorable moments of a stream. Twitch creators are facing legal trouble for videos they aren’t even making.

Who is this affecting?

Many creators, regardless of the size of their channel, are facing challenges with copyright claims. For instance, Fuslie (298,000 Twitch followers), EpicNameBro (83,000), and JakeNBlake (481,000) have all received takedown notices from Twitch.

During the claims process, the Twitch support team contacts creators suggesting they remove the Clips in question. That seems simple enough on paper, but it’s much more complicated than that. Many creators have over 100,000 Clips linked with their channels. Also, Twitch currently doesn’t offer bulk deletion, so each Clip has to be deleted individually.

Also, the Verge points out that these claims could potentially lead to a copyright strike. When a creator receives three strikes, their channel is permanently deleted from Twitch.

What is Twitch doing about this?

Right now, Twitch is working on ways to give creators more control over their Clips.

“This is the first time we have received mass DMCA claims against clips,” Twitch wrote. “We know many of you have large archives, and we’re working to make this easier…including examining how we can give you more control over your clips.”

Currently, we don’t have specifics on what Twitch plans to do. Regardless, we hope Twitch gives everyone an update soon.