Variety streamer Lacari has hit out at Twitch after the company hit him with a DMCA strike for a deleted VOD from 2017.
DMCA strikes are always stirring up controversy on Twitch. They usually happen when a streamer plays some form of copyrighted music live on their stream, with authorities receiving strange calls from politicians to have streamers jailed for breaching the rules.
There have been some truly bizarre strikes handed out in the past, from a GTA RP player getting struck for “sirens and horn blasts” to another streamer getting hit for someone stealing his emote. In light of complaints, Twitch has rolled out new processes to help streamers manage VODs to avoid strikes.
The latest bizarre incident happened to Lacari, a variety streamer who has accumulated over 200k followers since starting his channel in December 2016, as he was punished for a four-year-old VOD which was deleted from the platform.
Lacari alleged that the DMCA strike he received was from an Eminem song he played in 2017, on a VOD which has since been deleted. “Not really sure why it just appeared on my channel though,” he said.
He later provided an update, where he explained that he was initially notified about the strike over a year previously via email, but the strike didn’t appear until much later.
“The problem is they don’t tell you what the strike is from, and it wasn’t there when I started the stream before!” he added.
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update: apparently the DMCA strike was from a deleted 2017 vod where i played an eminem song
not really sure why it just appeared on my channel though
— Lacari (@tk_lacari) April 23, 2021
DMCA strikes are a minefield for Twitch streamers, with the likes of Summit1g and TimTheTatman claiming they are in danger of having their channels wiped because of repeated strikes.
Twitch has more plans to make DMCA management much easier for streamers as 2021 progresses, with its product roadmap detailing plans to allow streamers to sort clips and VODs by games player, and review VODs that have been struck from the Creator Dashboard.
However, for now, DMCA strikes will remain a major risk around which Twitch streamers will be forced to navigate.
