Yesterday's biggest news was the two changes to Twitch's system of VODs, both in storage and the playing of third-party musics. For those of you who missed it, VOD storage time is now limited, highlights are only allowed to be 2 hours long and a system similar to Youtube's Content ID system is now being employed to scan VODs (although not live broadcasts) for third-party music and muting 30-minutes blocks if it finds it.
In an AMA on Reddit a few hours ago, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear took on all questions. Except those about Google's purchase of the streaming site, those were off-limits it seems. He did answer questions about Audible Magic, the company they're running the new music identifying system with though. He also admitted that maybe they should have put out word of the new system before they implemented it; as it left streamers with very little time to take down problematic content for themselves of their own free will beforehand.
“Simply put: we screwed up and should have announced it ahead of time,” says Shear. “Sorry.”
He also says that the part of the blog post that talked about in-game and ambient music also being subject to content checks was poorly worded. Simply, he says that original in-game music will NOT be subject to checks and any that gets flagged will be quickly dealt with if the counter-notifications get filed. However background ambient music is subject to checks, so if you're going to stream make sure to switch off all phones and hope no one turns on a television or radio within hearing range of the computer.
Shear said that the reason the system has been set up and is being rolled out now is due partly down to plans to bring VOD to other systems, such as the Twitch app on the Xbox consoles. As mentioned above, questions about Google were forbidden so how much of it is due to their influence is uncertain.