Metallica presented their “For Whom the Bell Tolls” live virtually from their California headquarters as part of this year’s BlizzCon, the annual presentation for video game makers Blizzard Entertainment.
The legends of heavy metal appeared earlier during BlizzCon 2014. This year’s conference was broadcast live only due to the Covid-19 pandemic. “We would love to be there this year, but obviously we can’t be, so here we are, and this is for you,” said James Hetfield to the virtual audience before presenting the classic Ride the Lightning.
BlizzCon was broadcast on a variety of media – YouTube, Twitter, Twitch etc. – but viewers were quick to note that in the Twitch Gaming broadcast, the band’s music was replaced by something non-Metallica like a fail-safe Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) kicked in to protect the rights of the song.
the current state of Twitch: the official Twitch Gaming channel cut off Metallica’s live show to play 8-bit folk music to avoid DMCA pic.twitter.com/sCn56So8Ee
– Rod Breslau (@Slasher) February 19, 2021
According to EuroGamer, Twitch has had DMCA issues in recent months, even warning his streamers not to use previously recorded music on their channels or face removal notices; in May 2020, record companies began sending DMCA notices to Twitch users regarding their archived clips.
As noted on social media and during the broadcast, the sound gaffe was a time of punishment for Metallica, which 20 years earlier was at the forefront of the music industry’s struggle against the file-sharing service Napster, although this legal battle has taken place three years after the DMCA was enacted.