“It’s too hardcore”: xQc quits Kanye West’s Amazon Music event halfway over fear of a DMCA strike

Felix "xQc" Lengyel quit watching Kanye West's recent concert halfway through due to fears of a DMCA strike on his channel.

During a recent livestream on Twitch, xQc decided to hop on to the Amazon Music Twitch channel in order to watch Kanye West's latestconcert. However, the streamer decided to stop watching the event midway through as he was informed about a potential strike and suspension that could be levied on his Twitch channel for livestreaming the exclusive content.

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xQc stops watching Kanye's concert midway due to worries about a DMCA takedown

xQc decided to check out Kanye West's benefit concert "Free Larry Hoover" which was being performed at the LA Memorial Coliseum on December 9, 2021. The streamer, however, decided to stop watching the concert a little way through due to concerns regarding his channel being subjected to a DMCA strike by Twitch.

xQc started watching the concert on Amazon Music's Twitch channel. When he joined, the concert hadn't started yet. So, he decided to pass some time by interacting with the other people in the chat who were also watching the Kanye concert.

Midway through Kanye's performance, xQc grew concerned about something. He informed the people in his chat that he was worried about getting a strike on his channel for showing the Amazon event (exclusive to Amazon's digital services and offline through IMAX theaters). He told his viewers:

"I can't risk it. It's too hardcore. I'm on Twitter3Strikes and apparently Twitch music says it's DMCA."

xQc then encouraged his chat to go watch it themselves on Amazon Music's channel as he stopped streaming it. He then asked the moderators of his channel to delete all clips and vods from the stream so far, from where he had shown the concert. He told his moderators:

"Mods delete the vod."

Mods if you can't delete the vods and the clips, I can do it.. in a minute."

xQc stopped watching the event as soon as he learned there could be reprecussions. Twitch has a very strict DMCA policy where the long term effects of playing copyrighted music on stream can even result in channel termination. xQc, being one of the top streamers, was obviously aware of this fact. Hence, to avoid any issues he decided to quit streaming the concert.

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xQc seemed unsure if the news about getting a DMCA strike for playing the event on his stream was true, but decided not to take any risks and closed the window where he was watching it. He said:

"Guys I thought it was trolling. He said the music team said that."

As Amazon Music had announced earlier, Kanye's concert was streamed live on Amazon Music's Twitch channel. The concert was aimed at raising awareness about bringing reforms for prison and criminal judgments. The concert also featured Drake, who joined forces with the organisers for the cause.

The concert was attended virtually by a very big audience. This wasn't a surprise as it included big names like Kanye and Drake with backing from a huge corporation like Amazon.