Twitch streamer Charalanazard (Alanah Pearce) was watching Nintendo-approved Tears of the Kingdom content when her stream was suddenly cut off.
Alanah Pearce was suspended midstream on Twitch for watching approved Tears of the Kingdom gameplay. Pearce received a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown from Twitch.
Pearce’s stream was abruptly ended, and she was logged out of her account only moments after watching YouTuber Skillup’s Nintendo-approved Tears of the Kingdom gameplay. “Maybe two seconds after I stopped watching it, which means I suspect Nintendo did this to me in real-time,” Pearce said, laughing.
In a YouTube video she posted after the suspension, she talked through the events while sharing her screen. Pearce showed off the DMCA notification and a content removal screen. “It’s been taken down at the request of the copyright holder,” Pearce said, showing off the screen.
The video Pearce watched is still up on YouTube and was posted over a week ago. It’s a 25-minute preview of Skillup exploring Tears of the Kingdom before its release. “I’m not sure if there’s some sort of Twitch clause that I don’t know about that prevents you from being allowed to watch certain YouTube content, I didn’t think there was a thing,” Pearce said.
The watching of YouTube content has always been popular on Twitch, but a while back, streamers like Hasan Abi, who streamed entire seasons of Hell’s Kitchen, caused a bit of controversy by streaming licensed TV. Around that era of Twitch, streamers like Pokimane were banned for watching licensed TV on stream.
“Maybe someone misunderstood and thought that I was streaming the game, even though it was under the ‘just chatting category’,” Pearce said. Pearce claims Nintendo isn’t her biggest fan; “maybe it was targeted intentionally; they’re just trying to get me not to be excited about Zelda.”
In her Youtube video explaining the events, Pearce read through Twitch’s DMCA Guidelines, going through all the possible and vague reasons she could have been suspended for streaming approved footage. Pearce came to the conclusion that it’s possible the streaming of Skillup’s approved content could’ve been the reason for her suspension: “It’s totally possible I made a mistake and didn’t realize that I wasn’t allowed to show Ralph’s (Skillup) video.” Pearce even joked that maybe Skillup was the one who sent the DMCA, which she said she would be fine with. Perhaps it was actually Reggie who sent it in.
Not even an hour and a half later, Pearce’s account was unsuspended. In a tweet, Peace said, “Unban speedrun success; I contested it with Twitch as a false DMCA,” and confirmed the DMCA was sent in by Nintendo in another tweet and under her YouTube video.
Pearce’s fans on YouTube and Twitch rallied around her; most were unsurprised by Nintendo’s actions. This is not the first time Nintendo has DMCA’d content; the company has always been very protective of its IP. Do you think Nintendo was right to issue the DMCA this time?
