The bell tolled for some Twitch users trying to watch Metallica’s performance during BlizzConline’s opening ceremony on Friday when the streaming service swapped out James Hetfield and co. for, well, something that is definitely not Metallica.
As you can see in the video below, something that can be generously described as “slightly more aggressive elevator music” is playing over the virtual performance. The dub occurred on the Twitch Gaming channel, but not on Blizzard’s own Twitch channel nor its YouTube page.
You can see (and hear) for yourself below.
https://twitter.com/rickyftw/status/1362900300223246336?s=20
The Twitch Gaming channel was playing on the Twitch homepage at the time, likely a major factor in the company’s decision. TheWrap has reached out to Twitch and will update if we hear back.
Twitch likely did this to avoid copyright issues. Over the past year, record labels have warned the streaming service about their users posting archived clips. Last November, Twitch told users to not play recording music over their streams and scrub any past instances.
Of course, anyone alive over the last 25 years will find the irony here. Metallica, and most notably drummer Lars Ulrich, were front and center in the lawsuit against Napster (the band sued the company for copyright infringement) in 2000.