When Amazon paid nearly $1 billion for video game streaming site Twitch in late August, it hinted at the tremendous potential for sites that live stream games, concerts, sports, and more. But operators of sites in this nascent segment put themselves at risk of copyright infringement violations. For example, Twitch videos uploaded by game players could contain copyrighted sound recordings performed without the permission of the respective copyright owners. "Real-time streaming services don't fall squarely within the 'safe harbor' provisions contained in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that protect website operators from copyright suits," notes Rusty Weiss, chair of the Entertainment, Media, and Technology Group in the Los Angeles office of Morrison & Foerster. Until the law is settled, live-streaming site owners will need to tread carefully. For example, notes Weiss, the Section 512(c) safe harbor provides that a website operator is not liable for monetary relief for copyright infringement claims merely because it stores material "at the direction of a user." If a live-streaming site owner wants to increase its chance of qualifying for the Section 512(c) safe harbor, it should consider only streaming videos that the user has requested to be stored on the site's servers for the duration of the streaming.
Keywords: Digital Millennium Copyright Act, live-streaming, Technology
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