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Twitch is fighting Article 13, the upcoming change to EU copyright law, by hosting a stream for members of the European Parliament.
From 5pm UK time tonight (9am PST, 12pm EST) (thanks, PCGN), Germany’s Pirate Party’s Julia Reda and Tiemo Wolken from the Social Democratic Party will be streamed on Twitch’s official channel playing Mario Kart with Twitch streamers Pala and P4wnyhof.
"#Article11 and #Article13 are an attack on online culture. Together, we can stop them! On Tuesday at 5:30pm, I’ll be live on #twitch [to] discuss how to #SaveYourInternet over a round of MarioKart. Stay tuned!" Reda said on Twitter.
The stream is to spread awareness about Article 13 and #SaveYourInternet in opposing Article 13, which would make hosting and streaming services legally responsible for copyright violations. Twitch maintains such legislation would disproportionately affect EU streamers and lead to content filters specifically at EU residents. The European Parliament has already voted in favour of introducing Article 13.
"Twitch could be forced to impose filters and monitoring measures on all works uploaded by residents of the EU," CEO Emmett Shear wrote via a blog post last December. "This means you would need to provide copyright ownership information, clearances, or take other steps to prove that you comply with thorny and complicated copyright laws.
"Creators would very likely have to contend with the false positives associated with such measures, and it would also limit what content we can make available to viewers in the EU."
New research from Streamlabs – the broadcast software behind 41 per cent of all Twitch streamers – reported that Q4 2018 saw Twitch’s slowest growth all year as streamers increasingly turn to YouTube and Facebook to stream their live content. It also reported that for the first time since it launched in September 2017, there was a 5 per cent drop in quarterly active users streaming Fortnite, now thought to be 2.25 million.
The hours of streamed content and the number of unique streamers for its biggest rival, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, also decreased, dropping by 26 and 25 per cent respectively.
