Twitch changes the rules twice in one day

Today, Twitch announced two changes to the functionality of its site.

For one, it will no longer automatically storestreamers' entire video backlogs. High demand from users soon forced the site to disable its tool which allows them to export their vids to YouTube.

The company also announcedthat it has begun to scan videos against a content ID matching service to detect copyrighted music in all Twitch videos -- including previously recorded, archived ones. It will automatically mute them (in 30-minute chunks) if any infringing audio is found.

These changes to the rules come alongside yesterday's shutdownof its general-purpose Justin.tv streaming site (of which Twitch was originally the games channel).

Ironically, the company's own internally produced videos have already run afoul of its own audio-matching technologies, as shown in this tweet, and verified by Gamasutra:

Good job. pic.twitter.com/9D1ELLzn9K

— TheBrett @ DFM2014 (@kazmadan) August 6, 2014

It's natural to conjecture that these changes are designed to pave the way for Twitch's acquisition by Google. Rumors that YouTube plans to buyTwitch keep coming.

Late last year, YouTube cracked downon player-created game videos that contained copyrighted audio and footage. In response, attorney Stephen McArthur contributed a guideto Gamasutra about beating the site's ContentID claims.