xQc collects a ban because the Olympic Games are on his stream. Now the Canadian wants to take action against the punishment.
Canadian Twitch streamer Félix “xQc” Lengyel was briefly banned from the streaming platform at the end of July for watching the Olympics in his streams. Now, on Sunday, he announced he was taking action against the ban and challenging the DMCA claim.
“We’re countersuing, which is pretty daredevil. A countersuit is like, they give me a strike and I say no, I’m right,” the 25-year-old said in his stream
He went on to explain the reasoning behind the ban and confirmed the speculation that the punishment came from him watching the Olympics, “I was watching the Olympics and posting some Reaction content, then the strike came. Normally you don’t get banned for strikes, but since it was a live strike, I got banned so I wouldn’t cause any more damage. ”
Since xQc disputes the original DMCA claim, xQc seems to think that his live streams are altered content. Thus, they could fall under the “fair use” category. Under the “fair use doctrine”, content creators can also use material from other sources that is under copyright. For this, the content must count as commentary, criticism or news report, for example.
In any case, it is clear that the dispute is not over yet and more updates are sure to come soon. With the convoluted DMCA situation on Twitch, it may also be necessary for a streamer as big as xQc to fight it if he thinks he is in the right. On the other hand, it is also difficult if his career is damaged because he simply watched Olympia. As xQc himself said: “If this escalates, it can get really crazy”.