Transitions

I originally started this nonsense in late fall of 2018 with a loose vision of using meme-y gifs liberated from the internet and an abundant library of music while espousing my haphazard thoughts about current events, seismology, the apocalypse, music, beer, and bourbon with close friends and random Internet strangers. In my mind, this was a recipe for greatness…or disaster. Either way, it has been entertaining, at least for me.

Because of this combination of content, I was aware that I may have to change things due to copyright and licensing considerations. Having been an on again/off again dj for 20 plus years and watching the sample lawsuits from the 90s unfold, I expected at some point there would be push back, potentially including copyright strikes and takedowns of my recordings. Also, based on the early test videos I uploaded to youtube and facebook live, it was clear that those avenues were being watched, whether automated or reviewed by a live person.

Then, it hit me…twitch! Twitch was the answer. The service is very reliable and the audio/video quality isn’t bad. The streaming service embraced by gamers had quietly become an unofficial outlet for many dj’s, famous and unknowns. I watched a lot of different streams before fully committing to the platform and didn’t notice many, if any, that had problems with copyright issues. Until the past week.

Odd that section 230 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was explicitly mentioned by some fat orange dude recently, and now, with very sudden swiftness, twitch is policing dj content much harder and fervently than ever. I’d like to think his orangeness saw my specific stream – Episode 62 – Foxtrot Uniform Charlie Kilo Tango Romeo Uniform Mike Papa while chilling in his bunker and that brought the whole house of cards down but, I’m not THAT delusional….unlike said fat orange dude. But, that’s a different story.

To be honest, it really didn’t surprise me when I saw the Mixmag.net article (https://mixmag.net/read/twitch-dj-live-streams-copyright-news) pop up on my Facebook feed yesterday. It discusses how the streaming service is starting to crack down on the Covid-19 driven spread of dj’s plamping and streaming sets. Going into this endeavor, a lot of dj’s treated this as sort of a grey area and knew there was a possibility stronger enforcement would happen since it is explicitly listed as verboten in their terms of service (see https://www.twitch.tv/p/legal/community-guidelines/music/).

That leads us to here: I’m not certain what I’m going to do, I feel I was just starting to hit my stride with the format and content of my streams on twitch so having to restart on a different platform or revamp my presentation will require time and effort that I’ve already invested. Oh well…

I’m certain I’m not alone as many other streaming dj’s are seeking alternative hosts such as mixcloud.com which recently rolled out streaming as part of its pro subscription (https://www.mixcloud.com/pro/). Mixcloud touts all content licensing is legal (https://help.mixcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/360013059079) and at first glance, helps diminish the worry of copyright strikes, DMCA takedowns, and account bans for dj’s. But, that sales pitch has been used before…

And, I wasn’t too impressed with the quality of what Mixcloud is offering at this time. There were noticeable latency issues with the streams I attempted to watch yesterday but I’m not certain if that was the service or the individuals themselves.

For the time being, I will continue to stream twitch dj sets and look to expand the artists I have in the playlist. I will be disabling the feature that saves my streams for 14 days since I expect a lot of them will be muted anyhow, if not outright removed, so not much value after the fact. In other words, if you get the notification come watch the stream at twitch.tv/barthio.

I keep telling myself I know I can improve timely posting set lists and stream recaps for reference here on this site. If you don’t catch it live, you can at least take a look and see if what I’m offering is something you’re interested in.

I’m also considering keeping the twitch stream but reinventing it as a separate product from dj sets to be more in line with their TOS. Think a “just chatting” stream where all of the things I listed as reasons to do this are discussed. But, who knows at this point. All I know is change never stops.