Want to stream Cyberpunk 2077? Better turn down those tunes
Let's hope John Cage isn't dishing out takedowns.
Turn down those funky beats, cyberstreamers. In the run-up to launch, Cyberpunk 2077 was lauded for a DMCA-safe music mode that'd make the game safe to stream in an increasingly hostile copyright environment. On release, it looked like a song or two had slipped the cracks, but now the devs reckon more than a few troublesome tune ended up in that "safe" mode - recommending streamers play with music cranked down until they can patch out those pesky tunes.
In case you missed it, Cyberpunk 2077 launched with a whole lotta bugs. While perhaps less immediately hilarious that trouser-defying ding-dongs, a worrying one was the omission of a certain tune in the game's DMCA-safe soundtrack option.
CD Projekt were fairly quick to catch and notify folks of the issue, telling them to simply cut their music during the game's first few braindance scenarios. Unfortunately, it now seems the problem is more widespread, with "additional instances" of places where your in-game audio may catch the attention of those omnipresent copyright enforcers.
While it does look like there'll be a fix coming soon, there's something a little morbid about a cyberpunk fantasy telling you to flat-out flip off the music in case it draws the attention of our own dystopia. Hell, it even mirror's Twitch's own recommendations for avoiding takedowns, telling folks to simply turn off their game audio. Not great advice for music game streamers, who brilliantly protested by taking that advice to its natural conclusion.
Perhaps surprisingly for a game set 57 years in the future, Cyberpunk 2077 does have a fairly extensive licensed soundtrack. That may paint V in a new light, mind - the kind of audiophile who hangs around dusty old CD stores and insists songs sound much better on phones than they do in, I dunno, eyeball-mounted holo-speakers. God. What a nightmare.
For the time being, though, streamers should stick to the ambient bustle of Night City's environments.