Hasan warns TV show meta still “dangerous” despite Twitch reversing DMCA strike

Isaac McIntyre
Hasan on his Twitch stream.

Popular streamer Hasan Piker has warned other Twitch stars leaning into the TV show meta is still “dangerous” and could lead to more bans despite his DMCA strike for watching old Master Chef episodes being reversed on January 10.

Hasan has had his DMCA strike for watching TV shows on Twitch reversed after the Amazon-owned platform admitted it had made a mistake in the process.

Twitch revealed in an email to the popular streamer on January 10 that a rogue DMCA notification, apparently opened by Fox Network, had been submitted on his channel, and then subsequently “processed by mistake” ⁠— an error that the streaming website has since had reversed.

This doesn’t mean the ‘TV meta’ is back though, Hasan warns.

“I got lucky,” Piker said. “I don’t think this changes much. DMCA, it’s case by case, copyright holders can do anything. If people go buck-wild, things will change.”

“Twitch streamers have been more careful now,” the Twitch star continued. “There’s things that are going to be let go, I think, old shows the copyright holders aren’t really worried about anymore, that could be okay.”

There’s plenty that “won’t fly” though, Hasan warns. That includes anything from Viacom, considering their aggressive record with DMCA claims, and anime.

“It’s not fair use or anything like that, it’s literally which copyright holders actually care enough, and pay enough attention, to do something about people watching on-stream. I can’t speak for anime, but I wouldn’t touch it.

“It is literally a case-by-case thing, so it’s so hard to say what’s going to get a strike. Everything is dangerous now. That’s why I accepted the strike when I got one.”

Hasan in Trump merch on Twitch stream.
Piker received confirmation his DMCA strike was false in a January 10 email.

“I’m definitely going to be more careful in the future. I’ll probably watch Master Chef again eventually, yeah. But we should be more careful, we should all be more careful. This [his recent DMCA strike] wasn’t a legitimate claim, but it could easily have been ⁠— I got lucky, but I might only get lucky this one time.

“I am scared,” he added. “I’ll admit it. There’s no telling who will hand out strikes, and who won’t. That said, if I do get another [strike], I’ll definitely push back.”

Related segment begins 6:22:09 in stream below.

⁠Hasan may have said he’ll “wait a little while” before watching TV shows on his Twitch streams again but, less than an hour after that claim, he was tuning into new Gordon Ramsay highlights on YouTube again.

Pokimane was banned for 48 hours over a DMCA strike for watching Avatar: The Last Airbender. Disguised Toast was also just banned for watching shows.

About The Author

Isaac was formerly the Australian Managing Editor at Dexerto. Isaac began his writing career as a sports journalist at Fairfax Media, before falling in love with all things esports and gaming. Since then he's covered Oceanic and global League of Legends for Upcomer, Hotspawn, and Snowball Esports.