LoL streamer Voyboy unbanned on Twitch after copyright strike

Beloved and always-positive League of Legends streamer Joedat ‘Voyboy’ Esfahani was handed a surprise ban by Twitch on Nov. 5.

Update 11/9/2020:

Voyboy has been officially unbanned and his content is once again available after about four days of being offline.

The streamer revealed the reason behind his ban earlier the same day on Twitter, explaining, “My channel was banned on Twitch on Nov 5th due to music that was played on stream from many years ago (DMCA). Miss everyone a lot and hoping for the best as the situation is still being worked on.”

Original article 11/6/2020:

Previously a professional player competing in NA LCS under teams such as Dignitas, CLG, and Curse, Voyboy retired from professional play in November 2014 and has since he has settled as one of the most cherished LoL streamers in North America.

Voyboy was streaming League of Legends minutes before his ban, which Twitch still hasn’t given him a reason for, nor specified a duration. For people who have tuned in to any of his streams, the possibility that the ban was given due to toxic or unprofessional behavior is pretty low.

Members of the League and esports community have expressed their surprise and dissatisfaction with the ban, some with hilarious reactions, like LoL caster Clayton Raines, who insisted the platform had to be trolling.

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Voyboy seemed as confused as any of us on Twitter:

“Uhm,” he wrote. “Was just streaming League 5 minutes ago when looks like my Twitch account got banned…”

TSM’s own ADC Yliang ‘Doublelift’ Peng has his own explanation for the ban…

“Anytime you’re on the screen its sexual content,” he joked.

With the recent wave of Twitch personalities being hit by DMCA claims though, it could be that Voyboy’s ban was also a result of being copyright struck as well. Several people have already been temporarily or indefinitely banned from the Amazon-owned platform in recent times after this crackdown began

Twitch experienced a first “wave” of DMCA-related bans back in March, and it seems like streamers are in the midst of a second one. In the past two weeks, multiple popular personalitues such as Imane ‘Pokimane’ Anys, Cody ‘Clix’ Conrod, and Mariano “SquishyMuffinz” Arruda have seen their channels affected due to DMCA claims.

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Until now streamers had been forced to choose between deleting hundreds or even thousands of hours of content or face the possibility of being hit by a DMCA strike. Devin Nash is just one of many being punished by copyright claims over deleted clips as Twitch has been seemingly holding onto VODs that have been deleted by users. Devin Nash shows this on Twitter, displaying his empty clip dashboard while providing a link to one of his old clips from 2016.

“We deleted our entire legacy and Twitch still didn’t protect us,” Devin wrote.

Some reports have surfaced of streamers being the target of copyright claims from clips and VODs that had already been deleted, creating more confusion on how content creators should proceed to prevent having their channels banned.

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With ideas of streamer unions and periodic bans, it seems like the streaming community will continue to experience instability for the near future.

Unfortunately, we do not know how long it will be before we see Voy back back on Summoner’s Rift.