Content creator Alanah Pearce was recently banned and unbanned from herTwitchaccount. TheSony Santa Monica writer, who often streams in the evening to over 162,000 followers, documented the whole ordeal on social media.During a late-night Just Chatting stream, Pearce was watching and reacting to SkillUp’sThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the KingdomYouTube video with her viewers. Her stream was suddenly cut short after she received a suspension notice fromTwitchas a result of a DMCA notification. Pearce promptly uploaded a YouTube video on her second channel, Alanah IRL, saying that this was the first time she was banned on the platform and was confused about what caused the DMCA strike, especially since SkillUp’s video seemed to have been approved by Nintendo.RELATED:Twitch Has Banned PewDiePieIn the video, Pearce speculated that Nintendo issued the DMCA strike because someone in the company might have thought she was streamingTears of the Kingdom. She later confirmed that it was, in fact, Nintendo behind the strike. As many gamers would know, Nintendo has been notorious for taking down footage, includingvideo essays covering its gamesand fan-made trailers, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Pearce experienced the same thing. Fortunately, she was able to get her account back within an hour after contesting to Twitch that it was a false DMCA strike. However, the VOD of Pearce’s Just Chatting stream seemed to have been deleted from her Twitch page.
Many of Pearce’s followers expressed concern over the Twitch ban, especially since it happened shortly after YouTube demonetized both her channels. Even SkillUp was shocked that Pearce got a DMCA strike, saying that Nintendo might be getting too overzealous with strikes as the release ofThe Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdomdraws near. After Pearce was unbanned from the streaming platform, many fans said they were impressed by how fast Twitch resolved the issue, and jokingly called it a “speedrun.” There also a couple of people asking if Pearce was able to save the Twitch VOD and upload it on YouTube, but the content creator didn’t respond to the queries.
Getting banned due to copyright strikes can be troublesome for many Twitch and YouTube creators because they usually lose a chunk of their revenue stream. While it’s possible to appeal the strikes like what Pearce did, there’s no guarantee that they could get their accounts back immediately. For instance, streamers likeJiDion waited a year before Twitch responded to his ban appeal, and many others also waited a long time before getting their accounts back.
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