The pandemic has forced artists from across the globe to adapt to a new medium of livestream performances. While this is far from ideal for many performers who feed off the energy of a live audience, many have made do. Some, however, have acclimated better than others and it appears that Metallica falls into the “others” category.
During a livestream for this year’s BlizzCon—an annual convention organized by Blizzard Entertainment, the company behind video games like World Of Warcraft and Diablo, which was forced online this year—the metal pioneers ran into a bit of technical difficulty. As they pounded out the opening notes of the Ride The Lightning staple “For Whom The Bell Tolls”, Metallica had their sound cut off on Twitch and replaced with music that, let’s say, lacked the same adrenaline-soaked energy of heavy metal.
As many artists have come to realize over the pandemic, sites like YouTube and Twitch have certain built-in censors that activate to prevent copyright infringement. Oftentimes when somebody covers an artist, the stream will get shut down by YouTube or Facebook altogether. Rather than taking down the stream, however, Twitch went a different route and overdubbed the band’s music with the kind of light, ambient music that could be found in the background of Legend Of Zelda, rather than in Metallica’s rehearsal studio.
The irony here, of course, is that this technological faux pas was a direct result of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA). This 1998 copyright law came into effect in no small part thanks to Metallica, and memorably drummer Lars Ulrich‘s, public crusade against internet hosting site Napster at the tail end of the 90s as MP3s became commonplace in the United States. Now, it appears that the champions of intellectual property protections have fallen victim to the same archaic policies which they helped implement.
Watch Metallica’s performance of “For Whom The Bell Tolls” from BlizzCon’s Twitch stream quickly go awry.
Twitch Is Afraid Of Getting DMCA’d On Their Platform -Cuts Off Metallica..
[Video: ghecco’s twitch clips]
[H/TÂ A.V. Club]