Twitch ruins Metallica’s performance at BlizzCon 2021

This year, BlizzCon 2021 - an event dedicated to the main games and projects of the popular American software house - was held completely digitally and broadcast great news and exciting trailers to the general public. The event was closed by the legendary American heavy metal band, Metallica. It is not the first time that the group has performed at BlizzCon, having already appeared at the conference in 2014, but we will certainly remember this circumstance in particular, following an unexpected occurrence on Twitch.

Well, the viewers had the opportunity to enjoy the band's performance across multiple platforms. Nonetheless, it appears that the music performance rights Blizzard obtained for its channels, in compliance with US copyright law for the protection of Copyright, did not extend to Twitch's livestreaming platform, so it was affected. the performance of the song “For Whom the Bell Tolls“. Precisely, in place of the famous song of the legendary band that closed the digital event of Blizzard, Twitch cut the audio and replaced it with an 8-bit generic folk music track to avoid the DMCA, a choice that also differed widely. from the heavy metal genre.

The humor of the situation immediately reached everyone's ears. No, it wasn't a joke or a parody and yes, Twitch has a big problem with copyright removal. Could they have cut the audio completely? Sure, but it probably wouldn't have been that fun or that popular, considering that the video currently has over 1.2 million views. The original version of the performance aired seamlessly on YouTube, fortunately proving that these rampant DMCA issues aren't universal.

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



Back in the past year, Twitch received a lot of criticism after a series of rather bizarre DMCA removals. Indeed, some streamers have complained that Twitch has removed content simply because it showed a clip of their lives. Several streamers have always played at least live background music, as well as movies available on Amazon Prime Video. Subsequently, some have noticed that such content was then removed, but this happened anyway after the live broadcast. It goes without saying that the system reveals problems and should be optimized. And you, on the other hand, did you watch the event live? Let us know with a comment in the dedicated section below.

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