Photo: Dexerto
Twitch’s “TV Meta” still has a lot to develop as they continue their struggle with DMCA takedowns.
On Monday, Taiwanese-Canadian Jeremy Wang, popularly known as Disguised Toast on Twitch, was banned for watching “Death Note” – an anime that ran from 2006 to 2007 that is licensed by Viz Media.
Numerous viewers have presumed that this would be a short ban, following Imane Anysa, better known as Pokimane, being briefly banned for 48 hours for doing the same act. However, they were proven wrong as this could possibly extend into a month, as per the latest tweet from Disguised Toast.
The tweet said: “welp, looks like i’ll be seeing you guys in a month.”
Disguised Toast’s “hours and hours” of watching the anime without commentary is said to be the reason behind the ban. This has been called “TV Meta” within Twitch, in which small and big streamers watch, react, and add commentary to a film and television on their channels while live.
Everyone on Twitch is hopping on the trend, from Pokimane to xQc (Felix Lengyel), who has been reportedly streaming Viz Media’s “Hunter x Hunter” without receiving a ban. Well, at least not yet.
Well-known streams, Hasanabi (Hasan Piker), Ludwig (Ludwig Ahgren), and Sodapoppin (Thomas Morris), to name a few, sent out warnings about Twitch’s new meta, which is paramount to DMCA takedowns, the same way music was a few years back.
However, people are still taking their chances in watching live with thousands to millions of fans viewing on the platform.
It is important to note that streamers do not own the rights of videos and films they are showing live. So practically speaking, this would be against the program’s rules. Before falling under fair use, content should be “transformed.” And Twitch doesn’t often categorize commentary as transformative.
Video games, however, are different from these films. People are not just stating their commentaries, but no other person is experiencing what they are venturing at the exact time. The characters from video games are independently controlled by the person who’s streaming.
The Twitch community has been suffering from unfortunate happenings as a result of the site’s negligence in regards to imposed rules.
