Twitch’s most-watched streamer, Felix ‘xQc’ Lengyel, had to cut short his stream on December 9, and wipe the VOD, over concerns that he could be banned from the platform due to a DMCA strike. xQc had been watching the Kanye and Drake ‘Free Larry Hoover Concert’ on his channel.
Teaming up with Amazon, the concert was free to watch for all users on Twitch, and the stream peaked at over 230,000 viewers, with Drake and Kanye squashing their beef for the cause.
As it was being streamed on Twitch, many broadcasters, including xQc, opted to co-stream the concert on their own channels.
However, midway through doing so, xQc suddenly panicked, concerned he may face a DMCA strike due to the copyrighted music that was being played. And, with previous strikes on record, decided he couldn’t take the risk.
Kanye and Drake teamed up for the Free Larry Hoover show, live on Twitch.
xQc cuts stream short over ban fears
He explained that if he was hit with a DMCA, it would be his “last strike”.
“I’m on two out of three strikes, and apparently Twitch Music says [the concert] is DMCA. Mods, delete the VOD,” said the former Overwatch star.
DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) enforces platforms to comply with copyright claim notifications immediately, and the response will range from deleting the infringing content, to temporarily or permanently banning the account.
xQc previously received a DMCA strike for streaming coverage of the Tokyo Olympics on his channel. After his channel was suspended live, he said: “I took necessary precautions and thought it would be fine. Really didn’t expect it, but I could’ve easily avoided this.”
But, he then opted to counter-claim the DMCA strike, claiming that: “This is transformative content, this is fair use, and this is not what you guys claim it is.
“I, and [my counsel] truly believe it’s fair use and transformative, and have grounds to stand on. I genuinely think we’re right about this.”
However, streaming Kanye and Drake’s concert with live music was a risk too far for Lengyel, especially with previous DMCA strikes hanging over his head.