On July 2, Friday, Riot released something that’s somewhat of a rarity these days: a royalty-free album.
Stream Free From Worries With Riot’s Royalty-Free Music
Riot Games’ album, Sessions: Vi, contains 37 low-fi tunes that Riot made in collaboration with artists such as Junior State and Chromonicci. While it will be available on Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube, the album is royalty-free. It is part of Riot’s attempt to combat the growing frustration among streamers and gamers who are afraid of Twitter’s intensified efforts to protect copyrighted material. Riot isn’t the only one doing something to make sure that gamers can still stream games without the fear of getting banned accidentally. Eidos Montreal, the developers of the upcoming Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy game, added a toggleable switch that lets gamers turn off the game’s soundtrack during live streaming sessions. This lets players ensure that they will avoid getting banned on streaming platforms, as the game does include copyrighted material like songs by Blondie, KISS, and Iron maiden, among others. This is a feature that’s similar to what CD Projekt Red did to Cyberpunk 2077. The only difference is that Cyberpunk 2077 replaces songs that could potentially cause trouble with an alternative. It will be interesting to see what other studios will do in the face of Twitch’s receive moves. Over the past year, Twitch has sent thousands of DMCA takedowns to streamers for uploading content that contained copyrighted material. Roblox Corp, which recently went public, was sued in June 2021 for copyright infringement. The music publishers behind the lawsuit claimed that the company did not obtain the proper license that the game’s creators used in Roblox. As for Riot, the studio claims that this is just the beginning. Riot explained that it is committed to making more projects like Sessions Vi. Here’s to hoping that other gaming companies follow suit.
