Much has been made of the DMCA scandal that Twitch has recently been involved in.
The platform has received multiple copyright claims that has led to the current situation. Initially, Twitch had informed hundreds of streamers that content that infringes copyrights will be automatically taken off.
However, this notification had proved enough to send some notable streamers into a frenzy. This includes TimTheTatman, who swore to delete all of his VODs. However, it now appears that Twitch might well be handing out bans because of DMCA scandals. Recently, we talked about streamer ‘SquishyMuffinz’, who appeared to be at the receiving end of a DMCA ban.
Twitch Streamers are now getting banned due to the DMCA takedown
Similarly, streamer KittyPlays, who plays games such as Fortnite, COD and PUBG, was also banned earlier in the day. Similar to the move against SquishyMuffinz, speculation was that KittyPlays had also been banned due to a copyright infringement. Both streamers, along with NickMercs, had failed to delete at least some of their VODs.
SquishyMuffinz had not deleted a single video, leading up to the move. However, both the streamers have since been unbanned within a couple of hours. SquishyMuffinz and KittyPlays were unbanned within five minutes of each other, which means that the bans themselves might not have been completely thought out by Twitch.
Firstly, the platform had said in a notification that they will themselves delete the content which infringes on any copyright, and that they will not take any further action against the streamers in question. This appears to not be true, with bans being doled out due to the DMCA takedown, even if they were revoked within hours.
In addition to such half-hearted bans, streamers like Clix have received DMCA strikes as well. Clix, who is arguably one of the most popular streamers currently, recently announced that he has now received a total of 2 DMCA strikes. Of course, Twitch guidelines suggest that a third strike will lead to a permanent ban.
With such notable streamers struggling to keep up with the DMCA takedown, it appears as though the initial claims that no further action will be taken against streamers has been proven wrong. Recent events suggest that streamers like TimTheTatman who had panicked and deleted all of their VODs off the platform were in truth not over-reacting while doing so!
With such notable streamers struggling to keep up with the DMCA takedown, it appears as though the initial claims that no further action will be taken against streamers, has been proven wrong.
Recent events suggest that streamers like TimTheTatman, who had panicked and deleted all of their VODs off the platform, were in truth, not over-reacting at all while doing so.