Known for his skill playing Blizzard’s World of Warcraft, Twitch streamer Byron ‘Reckful’ Bernstein was considered one of the top players in the world. After a successful esports career, the gamer quickly gained a large following on Twitch and became one of the most popular streamers on the platform.

Recently, the Recording Industry Association of America filed copyright claims against a massive number of Twitch streamers for the unlicensed music contained in their old VODs and stream clips. These DMCA strikes caused the content in question to be automatically deleted, with no way for the streamers to see why the video was flagged or perhaps save it offline for posterity. And this leads to the question: What happens to the VODs and clips of former streamers like Reckful, who no longer have the ability to remove or safeguard their content?

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At least for Bernstein, proactive fans Nick ‘nmploi’ Polom and Malena Tudi are currently saving all of the deceased streamer’s VODs on an external server. Whether this content will later be uploaded to YouTube, where it could also become the target of DMCA strikes, is not yet clear. If the VODs are posted to another platform, for ethical reasons they would have to be demonetized to prevent the uploaders earning money from Bernstein’s content. But for now at least, Reckful’s fans can rest easy knowing that the VODs and therefore the memorable moments shared with one of their favorite Twitch streamers will not be lost to copyright strikes.

Twitch streamer Reckful posing for picture

While one DMCA strike is concerning, streamers have been informed by Twitch that three or more strikes will result in an indefinite ban. Considering the fact that many streamers have been saving their VODs for years and any viewer can create a clip during a stream, some content creators have huge numbers of videos that could potentially contain offending material. The result has been a wave of video deletions by Twitch streamers, who don’t have time to go through such quantities of content one by one.

In July 2020, friends and fans of the streamer became alarmed when Bernstein made some odd posts to his Twitter account, and the news soon spread that the streamer had passed away. Bernstein’s death was followed by a moving tribute to the gamer, when Blizzard announced that it would be adding a Reckful NPC to the World of Warcraft Shadowlands expansion, who can be found in the Cathedral of Light. Even though the DLC is still in beta, fans have been able to visit and pay their respects to the late streamer, whose character serves as a rogue trainer in the game.

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Source: Dexerto