Felix “xQc” Lengyel has issued a counter-claim to his Digital Millennium Copyright Act ban after he was banned from Twitch for streaming and reacting to Olympic highlights. The ban seemingly came out of nowhere, both due to the popularity of xQc’s stream and his choice to react to the content. After a short time away he made an announcement. He was counter-claiming the DMCA takedown, believing his stream and his reaction was fair use of the content after talking with his legal team. As of now, the response from the International Olympic Committee is still in process.
The DMCA situation and the Olympics
Due to many reasons, this year’s Olympics has been hard to view online. Even trying to find small clips of podium finishes is tough, due to the strict rules on rebroadcasting Olympics content this year. This was also true on Twitch, who have aggressively increased their enforcement of their DMCA rules over the past couple of years. This issue combined both the severity of Twitch’s DMCA ban system and the current Olympics strictness on rebroadcasting. On top of all that, the ban happened to one of the biggest streamers in the world.
The ban itself was big news. xQc was known for his multiple and consistent previous bans for plenty of different reasons beforehand. But, when days passed and xQc got his stream back online, he brought up his current situation.
“So basically, I was streaming the Olympics and I was doing some react content, right? And then I got striked. Normally, strikes can get you banned, but because it was a live strike, they just ban you so that you can’t do any further damage. This ban doesn’t affect my overall stream’s bans,” xQc said.
xQc counter-claims the Olympic organization
He went over his options to how to move on, and he mentioned how he had many different avenues to try after talking to his legal team. After a short time, he decided to go bold and issue a counter-claim to the Olympics over his ban. According to xQc, “this removes the strike, and we’re fighting back, and if this escalates, this will get crazy.”
The content is fair use, according to xQc, and he is willing to lose some money in this DMCA counter-claim to prove his point. Ryan Morrison, CEO of Evolved Talent Agency and founding partner of the law firm Morrison Rothman, is a part of the streamers legal team spoke up on Twitter about the situation as well.
When you counter a DMCA, the rights holder's only option is to sue you. As such, Felix is taking on an incredible risk to stand up for what is right here. That said, DO NOT COUNTER your own DMCAs without speaking to an attorney. Even if you are right, it can be VERY costly to win
— Video Game Attorney (@Morrison) August 2, 2021
xQc could suffer a huge financial loss if his DMCA counter-claim doesn’t work out. xQc himself said, “this could cost millions.”
With this situation still under development, we will report on big updates on this case as they continue.
