After getting postponed last year, the 2020 Olympics is finally underway in Tokyo, Japan — but several Twitch streamers claim they’ve been sent DMCA’s by the IOC after streaming near Olympic venues.
The highly-anticipated 2020 Olympics is taking place in Tokyo, taking up a number of athletic venues in the massive capital city of Japan.
While the hype is at an all-time high, not everyone is taking part in the excitement — particularly, IRL streamers, who are seemingly risking potential bans for broadcasting anywhere near the historic athletic competition.
On July 23, partnered IRL Twitch streamer ‘Kuri’ shared a screenshot of a DMCA notice that one of their friends had received after allegedly streaming in public areas near the Olympics.
https://twitter.com/KuriTwitch/status/1418561381981245451?s=20
Kuri claimed that two of their friends had been hit with DMCA’s from the IOC — one, for streaming a flyover of jets in a public park, while another was streaming from outside an Olympic stadium.
Kuri then alleged that the International Olympic Committee is “abusing DMCA on Twitch” and claimed that “Twitch Support is doing nothing to stop it.”
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And I had a bad signal and had a black screen most of the time🤣Maybe my voice was too attractive🤔
— MK (@miki_Japan_book) July 23, 2021
They then named yet another friend that had received a ban for streaming in a public park, adding that broadcasters “can’t even stream the sky now.”
The streamer who had broadcasted in the park claimed that she had also experienced bad signal and had a black screen most of the time,” and uploaded a clip of what she had streamed to her Twitter account, asking, “Where is the Olympic [logo]?”
五輪のマーク、どこ？笑 pic.twitter.com/dp62BBkKMR
— MK (@miki_Japan_book) July 23, 2021
While this isn’t the first time Twitch has been flooded with DMCA concerns, the platform recently reversed its decision to make DMCA’s permanent strikes against creators, instead updating to a “timed strike” system similar to that of YouTube.
Luckily, this means that any streamers who get hit with DMCA’s due to the Olympics won’t have to worry about it permanently blackening their records — but it’s still resulting in frustration from the broadcasters involved, all the same.
