Pokimane, one of Twitch’s biggest and most popular streamers with over 8.5 million followersShe was banned from the platform while streaming the cartoon last night Avatar: The Last Airbender. The ban is temporary, according to Pokimane, but a sign that Twitch’s growing “TV meta” is likely to cause further problems for large and small streamers.
On January 7th at around 8 p.m. EST, Pokimane streamed to an audience of about 25,000 while watching the Nickelodeon TV show Avatar: The Last Airbender for the first time. The stream showed a live recording of her responding in the corner of a full screen broadcast of episodes of the show. Halfway through the stream it is reported that Pokimane has received a live DMCA ban
Shortly thereafter is the StreamerBans bot on Twitter shared the news: Pokimane has been banned from Twitch. This is the streamer’s first ban. Kotaku has contacted Pokimane about the ban and whether she Plans on stream TV shows again.
Pokimane took to Twitter a few minutes after the ban and tweeted that “The Fire Nation attacked” a direct reference to the company User picture Show and the recent ban. A few hours later, the popular streamer confirmed that the lock was only temporary and that she could stream again on Twitch after 48 hours.
It may seem strange to stream yourself while watching a TV show, but this has become a popular trend on Twitch. In this “TV meta”, streamers and their viewers watch TV programs and cartoons.
Now if I check Twitch as I write this sentence, I can see at least a half dozen streamers in the Just Chatting category watching old animated shows and wrestling events. Of course, almost all of this content is owned by big companies that are usually not that keen on random people to send their copyrighted material to thousands of people for free. So it’s not shocking that even a great streamer like Pokimane would face a legal setback. in the form of a DMCA ban
It’s too early to say if this very public and huge ban on streaming a TV show will have any impact on the ongoing TV meta on Twitch.
It seems likely that big streamers will think twice about streaming some old ones Intruder Zim Episodes when it could lead to one DMCA strike against their channel. And for smaller streamers who don’t have the money or the clout to battle Twitch, this could lead to permanent bans, making the Twitch watch party and TV meta on offer even more risky.
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