Streamer Alanah Pearce banned for watching Zelda trailer footage on Twitch

"It would appear that Nintendo DMCA'd me for watching approved Zelda gameplay."

When their long-awaited game The Legend of Zelda : Tears of the Kingdom leaked over a week before release, Nintendo's notorious legal efforts and takedowns only got more aggressive.

One person caught in the crosshairs was Alanah Pearce, game writer for Sony Santa Monica as well as YouTuber, boxer, DJ and most importantly Twitch streamer. During a stream where she watched a TOTK preview video from SkillUp that only contained pre-embargo footage, Pearce's channel charalanahzard received a DMCA strike from Nintendo and was suspended. The SkillUp video has not been subject to any takedowns.

After 70 minutes, Pearce managed to appeal and reverse the Twitch ban and regained access to her channel. With over 163K followers on Twitch alone, the size of her audience may have sped up her appeal; smaller streamers may not be so lucky.

https://twitter.com/StreamerBans/status/1655817156553060353
https://twitter.com/Charalanahzard/status/1655799864457035776?cxt=HHwWgIDQwYbNyvotAAAA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKc2_3-vRf8

(originally published as part of Girl Games Network #1 on 21/5/2023)