This year's BlizzConline had a very pleasant surprise for all of us: Metallica's performance. But that is not the only surprise that we get ... since Twitch users enjoyed another (not so pleasant) that did not happen on YouTube.
When the band began playing the Ride the Lightning record classic "For Whom the Bell Tolls" from their studio, the live stream on the Twitch platform was suddenly muted and replaced by synth music reminiscent of the game tunes of the years. 90. We show you that piece in the following tweet:
the current state of Twitch: the official Twitch Gaming channel cut off the live Metallica concert to play 8bit folk music to avoid DMCA pic.twitter.com/sCn56So8Ee
- Rod Breslau (@Slasher) February 19, 2021
The censorship was intensified with the message on the screen "the next musical performance is subject to copyright protection by the corresponding copyright holder." According to AV Club and Uproxx, the incident appears to have been an oversight rather than deliberate censorship to avoid a lawsuit from DCMA. Twitch has also disabled the ability to make clips on the channel to avoid memes. Fortunately, Rod 'Slasher' Breslau managed to capture images and share them on Twitter.
Last year, the Metallica guitarist Kirk Hammett reflected that the band's famous battle for artists' control over their music It had been a waste of effort, saying 'we didn't make a difference… it was bigger than any of us, this trend that happened that sank the fucking music industry. There was no way we could stop it… What happened was suddenly, it was more convenient to get music and it was less convenient to pay for it, and there you have it.
This isn't the first time DMCA issues on Twitch have produced comical results, and it won't be the last. Still, the incident came as a shock to fans who just wanted to enjoy the concert.
Don't you think Twitch is pushing Copyright issues too far to the point of absurdity?