Twitch is more than a little nervous about copyright, and that is affecting even for events where you would think it would be safe. Metal injection and Variety report that Twitch abruptly cut and doubled Metallica’s performance at BlizzCon 2021 (not pictured here). When “Enter Sandman” started, the streaming service abruptly replaced the performance with a wildly unusual accordion-driven folk piece – hilarious, but probably not what you expected to hear from James Hetfield and his team.
You can still find clips from the online performance without the dubbed music, but even observers like eSports consultant Rob Breslau were hesitant to share complete recordings to avoid copyright claims.
It is not surprising that Twitch undermines Metallica’s performance. Streamers on the service received a barrage of DMCA removal requests in the spring of 2020 because of music, some for videos that were years old – Twitch risked one of his own, although he was clearly allowed to broadcast to BlizzCon. Certainly there is a degree of irony that Metallica was caught up in copyright problems after the band helped lead the crusade against Napster at the turn of the century (their opinions have evolved since then).
Even so, the incident illustrates the effects that the DMCA and the aggressive record labels had on live broadcasts. Even Twitch, with permission to broadcast to BlizzCon, was not willing to risk a legal battle for a live show that theoretically would have been safer than playing an album cut. You can see more tragicomic responses like that until there are digital copyright reforms or a change in attitude at record labels.