Twitch, the streaming service that gamers love to use to broadcast their in-game shenanigans to the internet, has approved a list of over 500 songs that can be used as background music to video-on-demand broadcasts according to Eurogamer.

That’s significant because ahead of its acquisition by Amazon last year, Twitch implemented an unlicensed music clampdown that used a clever algorithm to automatically mute videos that played unlicensed music tracks in the background, angering a whole bunch of its users in the process, particularly the popular ones.

Now, with these 500+ “royalty-free, globally-cleared” tracks, Twitch is giving its users musical options that won’t land them in front of a judge, being sued for copyright infringement.

The track list is made up of bands and labels you’ve probably never heard of, but there’s a good variety in there with options ranging from heavy metal mixes all the way to Eurodance tracks, from labels like Monstercat and Mad Decent. The tracks can all be found on music.twitch.com, and previewed through Soundcloud and Spotify.

In another surprise move, Twitch also announced that they’re happy for unsigned artists to broadcast their music via the service, and even let other streamers use those tracks in their videos.

So it appears Twitch is branching out a bit from its game-footage-streaming beginnings and testing more musical waters. Let’s hope the two find a way to co-exist peacefully, to the benefit of Twitch’s 60 million monthly users.

[Source – Eurogamer]