Twitch djWHEAT warns streamers against streaming TV shows

Marcus "djWHEAT" Graham, head of Twitch community productions, warned Twitch streamers that they are taking serious risks by streaming and reacting to popular TV shows on their Twitch channels.

Graham, who has recently revealed that he is leaving Twitch in January, says that the practice of streaming TV shows is "absolutely not ok" and that this activity is "just as DMCA'able as anything else."

DMCA strikes over TV shows on Twitch are "just a matter of time"

Some of the biggest streamers on the platform, including Félix "xQc" Lengyel, started watching shows like Gordon Ramsay's "MasterChef" during their streams, and since the most popular streamers are usually the trendsetters, this type of content quickly become popular on Twitch.

Random question with no real context:

Noticing a lot of streamers are watching shows and reacting. No shade, more power to them! But I mean, is this OK to do? Are these like, public domain shows or something? Do larger companies just not care about folks restreaming their stuff?

— Cohh Carnage (@CohhCarnage) December 26, 2021

Graham's warning comes as an answer to a question coming from another popular Twitch streamer, Cohh Carnage, who was curious about the rising popularity of watching various TV shows on Twitch, where streamers would react to that content.

"Noticing a lot of streamers are watching shows and reacting. No shade, more power to them,"  Cohh Carnage tweeted. "But I mean, is this OK to do? Are these like, public domain shows or something? Do larger companies just not care about folks restreaming their stuff?"

The question caught djWHEAT's eye, who immediately and directly answered that this type of content is risking breaking DMCA rules and warned streamers not to do this.

"It’s absolutely not ok. Just like it has never been ok to stream music," Graham explained. "This is just as DMCA’able as anything else. Hard to say why streamers have not been targeted."

And while djWHEAT emphasizes that this is just his opinion, and not an official Twitch stance, he added that he thinks it is "just a matter of time" before the situation goes the same way music has over the last year and a half with DMCA strikes, when big publishers started issuing a huge number of DMCA strikes in order to stamp out the unlicensed use of copyrighted music on Twitch.

Twitter user Leonardowrc noted that his "context from Brazilian streamers" is that TV shows "actually want them to react to it" on which djWHEAT responded that it is "within their right to do so", but he strongly advises streamers against asking "for forgiveness versus permission."

No. I would suggest learning more about DMCA to understand why. Specifically look at what protections companies get under DMCA and why. People need to be better educated here.

— djWHEAT (@djWHEAT) December 26, 2021

Graham further added that neither he nor Twitch can do anything about it if the situation explodes, and urges streamers to educate themselves about DMCA.

And while for now production houses and TV networks are not issuing strikes over Twitch creators streaming their content, there's no guarantee that it will not happen eventually.

And if it does, we might witness another big purge just like the music industry one from 2020, depending on how widespread the trend of streaming TV shows will become.

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Featured image courtesy of Twitch / xQc/ Fox.