Twitch Gaming hiliarously mutes Metallica's own BlizzConline set to avoid DMCA takedown

"Exit light. Enter night. Take my hand. We’re off to DMCA land."

If you watched Metallica performing remotely to BlizzCononline 2021's stream today, then all was well and you got to hear actual Metallica songs. However, if you watched it over on the official Twitch Gaming channel, then you definitely heard music, just nothing from metal's biggest band. Instead, what you heard was either 8-bit music or low-key, looped royalty-free beats. This is all because of how Twitch's use of copyrighted works operates, a move taken so that Blizzcon could avoid copping a ban on the platform. Even though it's their own channel hosting their own event. Which is an issue that has been rife on Twitch over the last 12 months.

So, let's get this straight. Metallica can't even have their own original music heard at an event streamed to Twitch, an event that they were invited to perform at? Fucking hilarious. This is the kind of DMCA takedown and copyright nuking that stems all the way back to when bands like them took on Napster, taking legal action over third-parties using their copyrighted music. This is the current climate that such actions has lead us.

What a flawless system that the music industry and Twitch have all worked together towards. Congrats everybody, well done!

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