Hugely popular Twitch streamer Pokimane was issued a ban yesterday, kicking off another debate about…you guessed it, DMCA.
Pokimane was issued a 48 hour temporary ban after streaming Avatar: The Last Airbender episodes to 25,000 viewers, part of a larger trend on the service where big and small creators are watching TV shows or movies alongside their Twitch communities, interacting and providing commentary.
Pokimane is shrugging off the ban, joking about it and planning for her return. Though it would seem unlikely she’d go back to watching Avatar, or any show, and this may be the start of a larger crackdown by Twitch.
This practice is in a weird gray zone on Twitch. It’s definitely something that comes with innate risk, given that this content is copyrighted, just like music. But we have not seen the kind of legal interest from the TV/film industry that we have from the RIAA in terms of using DMCA to issue takedowns. So that leaves Twitch to decide whether or not to enforce these rules. In Pokimane’s case, I guess it was decided that it was too high profile, too blatant to ignore, but again, it may be a warning shot for all creators going forward, though it’s still not clear if this was a response to a specific DMCA request from the rights holder.
Here’s Twitch’s DJWheat, talking about why he personally thinks this trend is bad news:
“It’s absolutely not ok. Just like it has never been ok to stream music. This is just as DMCA’able as anything else. Hard to say why streamers have not been targeted, but just like music, it’s probably just a matter of time. This is not an official Twitch take, just my own.”
The debate here is whether Twitch should be proactively banning or restricting these kinds of streams to protect their creators from potential future takedowns or legal action that seems inevitable. But the other side has others saying that Twitch should remain hands off until anyone actually complains. You could make the case that say, Pokimane watching Avatar is “advertising” for the show, and ViacomCBS could see a surge in interest for Avatar ahead of their many projects in that universe coming up. So using DMCA to go after a popular streamer enjoying their content may be a bad look.
Fundamentally…all game streaming is using copyrighted material, it’s just that all game-makers want their games to be streamed to generate interest or increase sales. The TV and film industry may have to decide if they want to embrace streaming and “watch parties” like gaming, or go the legally correct, but much-derided route of the RIAA and massively crack down on things like this. In this case, it seems like we’re in a strange moment. Was Twitch forced to do this? To protect themselves? To protect Pokimane and warn off other creators? That remains unclear.
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