Twitch has recently been dominated by the “Master Chef meta,” in which popular streamers like xQc have recently been spending a significant amount of their stream time watching episodes of popular American adaptation of Master Chef of Gordon Ramsey’s and “reacting” to them in front of their hundreds of thousands of viewers. Despite the apparent copyright violation, Twitch has been lax in its enforcement of the ban, resulting in a surge in MasterChef streams.
Some of the platform’s most popular streamers, including xQc, Mizkif, Pokimane, and others, have created “React style” content about Master Chef. While the “react meta,” in which Twitch streamers watch videos with their audience, has been around for a while, the Twitch community has recently taken a shine to Ramsey’s cooking show.
Is the MasterChef meta sustainable, given Twitch’s recent emphasis on copyright, with many streamers being forced to delete old VODs with copyrighted music? Unless copyright holders give their permission ahead of time, DMCA claims will almost certainly be filed against MasterChef streamers, effectively ending the meta.
In 1990, the BBC created the first version of MasterChef. The popular American version of the show, hosted by celebrity chef Gordon Ramsey, first aired in 2010 and has since aired eleven seasons, with a twelfth season scheduled for 2022. The show’s US version has over 200 episodes, making it a gold mine for Twitch streamers looking for quick cash instead of creating original content but unfortunately, the creators and publishers of MasterChef are unlikely to allow streamers to continue broadcasting their show. Even if the streamers diligently erase the VODs after streaming the copyrighted content, the MasterChef copyright owners are likely to issue DMCA notices on these livestreams.
Surprisingly, this isn’t the first time that MasterChef viewing has become a problem on Twitch.
TrainWrecks, a Twitch streamer, watched some episodes of MasterChef on his channel in 2019, for which many streamers and viewers chastised him, calling him a thief and a slacker. Watching copyrighted content is against Twitch’s Terms of Service, and the platform’s Community Guidelines state that showing movies and television shows without the publisher’s express permission is prohibited. Despite this explicit rule, Twitch has yet to take action against the practice.
Asmongold says that The MasterChef thing isn’t going to last and that he was pretty sure Trainwrecks got DMCA’d for that and eventually, they’re going to DMCA streamers, and as soon as the first one gets DMCA’d, everybody else is going to stop watching it.
Last week, TrainWrecks himself weighed in on Twitter, expressing his outrage that streamers are now reacting to the same show that he was chastised for watching, and labeling them hypocrites. However, he did not confirm or deny Asmongold’s claim that he had been DMCA’d.
While policing a live stream is more difficult than policing VOD content because it is only available during the broadcast, the same copyright rules apply in both cases. While it’s possible that some of these streamers paid Fox to stream the content, given that none of them have stated so, it’s difficult to assume that they’re doing so legally. And, assuming Twitch doesn’t enforce its community guidelines, if streamers are caught illegally streaming MasterChef, the copyright holders are bound to come after them.
The ongoing Master Chef meta on Twitch contrasts sharply with Ludwig’s and other YouTube streamers’ difficulties with YouTube’s content-ID system, which is far more aggressive than Twitch’s. Ludwig was banned in his first week of exclusively streaming on YouTube, all of which were for reaction-style content.
While Twitch has long been more lenient when it comes to playing copyrighted music and videos on their platform, streamers should not become too reliant on them, given that many streamers were forced to delete large portions of their videos earlier this year due to copyright violations from music copyright holders. While Twitch’s response time can be unpredictable, their disciplinary actions are usually unwavering when they finally use the ban hammer.