Twitch streamers that want to play music over their gameplay sessions will now be able to choose from a selection of licensed songs made freely available by the service.

Further Reading Thousands of Twitch videos silenced as streaming site mutes copyrighted audio

Last year, Twitch started muting audio in archived streams when it detected unauthorized, copyrighted music in the background, using an automated system created by Audible Magic to find infringing soundtracks. This move impacted a wide array of streamers, who often like to play music over gameplay or in between matches. The muting even covered licensed songs that appear inside the streamed games themselves in some cases.

Today's introduction of music.twitch.tv seems to be a compromise solution to this problem, offering streamers 500 fully licensed songs that "will not be flagged by the audio recognition system implemented in 2014 to protect audio copyright holders and Twitch broadcasters alike," as Twitch puts it. Twitch says the song selection comes from "established and burgeoning labels," but you won't find songs from major pop music conglomerates like Sony BMG, Universal Music, EMI, or Warner among the choices. Instead, labels like Mad Decent, Dim Mak, Spinnin Records, OWSLA, Monstercat, and Fools Gold provide the tunes.

"Our community has been vocal about the importance of music for their broadcasts and their love of music in general,” Twitch Chief Strategy Officer Colin Carrier said in a statement. “By working with both established and upcoming record labels, we are now able to offer music for them to use that is cleared for live broadcasts and archiving.”

In a reddit AMA shortly after the muting system was implemented, Twitch CEO Emmett Shear promised the muting system was going to "get better," with finer-grained segment muting. A few weeks later, Twitch was purchased by Amazon to the tune of $970 million, a move that some saw as a proximate cause for the sudden copyright crackdown.

Twitch also announced today that it would be opening its service up to artists that want to broadcast performances of original songs using its streaming technology, with an official Music channel. The move comes after Los Angeles-based producer/DJ Steve Aoki used a live performance on Twitch to drive preorders of his album Neon Future.