Twitch Suspends DragonForce Guitarist’s Channel For Playing His Own Music

Given the sheer number of videos that are uploaded and streamed, it would not be realistic to expect that platforms like Twitch or YouTube have human moderators to moderate every single one. This usually means that these platforms need to rely on automated systems to look out for content that might violate their terms of service.

Unfortunately, these automated systems are far from perfect, such as in the case with DragonForce’s guitarist Herman Li, whose Twitch channel was recently suspended for playing his own songs. Yes, it seems that playing songs that you legally own or have the rights to could end up in Twitch’s crosshairs.

What’s doubly interesting about this is that DragonForce had previously announced that they were more than happy to allow streamers to play songs from some of their albums and not worry about DMCA claims, so in this instance, the irony is kind of delicious. As Kotaku Australia notes, this is not a good look for Twitch who has come under heavy criticism for their heavy-handedness when it comes to removing content.

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My Twitch channel is currently suspended. Today I will be streaming on YouTube instead athttps://t.co/BKSH6bI73W
Starts 1pm PT / 4pm ET / 8pm UK.
Another new guitar incoming today! pic.twitter.com/kjwZn8L08i

— Herman Li (@HermanLi) October 27, 2020

This is because in some instances when a video is removed, Twitch does not mention which video clips in question actually received DMCA takedown notifications, which means that for some creators, they could potentially lose years of content. In the case of Li, he announced that he will be moving his streams to YouTube instead.

Tyler Lee
Categories: Audio, General
Tags: Entertainment, Legal, Music, Social Hit, Twitch