DMCA on Twitch has been one of the most talked-about things among streamers for the last month. A mix of confusion, anger, and fear has fully engulfed the community, while misinformation is spreading faster than facts. We’re witnessing a massive failure on the feet of leadership at Twitch. When a community is in crisis, it’s up to the leaders to address it and calm our fears. It’s on the people in power to answer questions, and help their community ride out a difficult period. Every streamer knows if they ignore their chat (or don’t even stream) they’ll lose their community… and we’re seeing that play out on a platform level. It’s disturbing, to say the least.
In an attempt to help our community understand what is currently happening, I’m going to try to document the current DMCA crisis. That means tracking who has received DMCA’s, who has been suspended (and for how long), and who has been permanently banned. If you have received a DMCA, please contact me via DM on Twitter. The more data points, the better informed we can be (and the better we can potentially protect one another later-on). Also, I highly recommend streamers self-monitor their streams using this free tool… Information is key when defending oneself from a threat.
Streamer DMCA’s and Outcomes
**This list is put together with the best available data that the streamer has made public, or has individually confirmed. Three strikes mean permanent bans – unless Twitch overturns them later. This situation remains fluid, so this will be updated often.**
UPDATE: THERE ARE SIMPLY TOO MANY DMCA’S TO COUNT! As such, I’ve closed the tracking for any active DMCAs at this point. Literally, over the last year, this page had a hundred or so… and today on Twitter we saw about 50 happening live. I simply don’t have the time to track them all.
If you are a streamer… PROTECT YOURSELF FROM DMCA BY FOLLOWING THIS POST!
Standout Twitch DMCA Cases
KittyPlays received a DMCA strike (and channel ban) on November 2nd, 2020. She was allegedly in the process of removing her clips and VODs. As such, after two hours, Twitch unbanned her. There is one other instance of her receiving a DMCA back in 2018.
SquishyMuffinz received a DMCA strike (and channel ban) on November 2nd, 2020. By his own admission, Twitch terminated his account for multiple strikes BUT undid the suspension after two hours as long as he removed all his VODs/Clips.
ProjektMelody received a DMCA strike on November 4th, but it was unrelated to music. Technically, not part of the DMCApocalypse, but not outside of it either.
BrkkLive received a DMCA strike (and channel ban) on November 4, 2020. He deleted all his clips/VODs a couple of days before. He was unbanned after 2-days.
xQcOW received a DMCA strike on November 4th, 2020 while live on stream, for a clip from 2019. According to his channel, all previous clips/VODs were removed on November 1st. Despite being live, no suspension.
Yoda received a DMCA strike (and channel ban) on November 5, 2020. After promising Twitch to remove all his old VODs/Clips, his channel was unbanned 26 hours later.
Papaplatte received a third DMCA strike (and channel ban) on November 6, 2020. He has submitted an appeal, saying that earlier in the day, he started to delete his clips. But, he received the third before that process was finished.
Summit1g has received THREE DMCA strikes by his own admission. We don’t know the dates of these strikes, nor the content that got struck. Fortunately, despite a common 3-strike policy, Summit1g has received no consequences yet.
Unconfirmed DMCA Strikes by Day
AiyvaNCSGO allegedly received a DMCA takedown on October 27, 2020, and a 7-day suspension. This doesn’t align with what we generally know about DMCA’s, but we only have his word to go on.
Ryujehong received a channel ban on November 4, 2020. There is no confirmation of a DMCA just yet, but that’s the rumored reason. He remains suspended.
Rumored but WAS NOT a DMCA
Herman Li was widely reported as having been suspended for ‘playing his own music’ on October 27, 2020. However, Herman was suspended for 3-days for sexual content, after having shown a band playing naked on his stream. Herman Li did NOT receive a DMCA.
