Streaming on Twitch and YouTube can be a bit of a minefield. Especially when it’s something you do for a living. DMCA takedowns are now more common than ever since copyrighted music is often used in Streams. Often a couple of seconds can be enough, which is a huge nuisance for streamers.
CD Projekt RED has definitely considered this issue with Cyberpunk 2077. The game comes with a unique “streamer-friendly” mode, where any copyrighted music is disabled and replaced with music that won’t trigger any copyright issue. This mode will be enabled by default on consoles when streaming the game. On PC you can toggle it in the settings.
Cyberpunk 2077 might be one of the first and only games to respond to the growing problem with DMCAs on streaming platforms. Not having to worry about your game triggering a copyright strike would be a huge relief. A lot of content creators so far have been forced to disable the music in their games to avoid this. Which of course doesn’t really do a good job promoting a huge part of the game to people.
DMCAs are symptomatic of a larger ongoing issue though. And solutions like the one in Cyberpunk 2077 aren’t really solutions but more just ways to avoid the problem rather than solving it. Music is a huge part of a lot of games, whether licensed or not. And hopefully, we can figure out a way to allow content creators to promote music artists in their content without it getting claimed.
A Huge Score
Cyberpunk 2077 will contain a staggering amount of music. In addition to the game’s original score, a ton of licensed artists will appear in the game. Some of them have even made exclusive tracks for the game. The most notable example being Run The Jewels who contributed their new song “No Save Point” to the game.
The above video shows a look into the composers and their creative process working on the game’s score. A lot of analog gear was used to create the soundtrack, as well as orchestral elements. The composers claim 90s industrial music in particular as an influence.
You can hear more of the music when the game launches on PC, Google Stadia, PS4, and XBox One on December 10th.
