Disguised Toast Confirms What Fans Suspected About His Ban

In what perhaps might be one of the most impressive ruses on Twitch in recent history, Disguised Toast, a member of Offline TV, returned to streaming after his recent ban for watching anime to reveal that the person who DMCA'd him, was himself. The most recent Twitch meta to catch on has seen streamers watching and reacting to TV shows on stream, with "MasterChef" and animated shows being among the more prominent choices. Pokimane got a 48-hour suspension for watching "Avatar: The Last Airbender" on stream and then Disguised Toast received a ban for watching "Death Note" on stream. Disguised Toast told everyone that his ban would last a month, but it did not last that long in reality — and there was much more to the ban.

Disguised Toast hopped on stream a few days after the ban and revealed that he had watched "Death Note" on stream with the intention of getting banned, confirming a fan theory that he'd flouted the rules to make a point. 

He explained that he told fellow OfflineTV member LilyPichu on January 5 to DMCA strike him while he was live on Twitch, hoping it would scare other streamers away from watching TV while streaming. What Disguised Toast didn't expect was how long he would be able to get away with watching "Death Note."

During his return stream, Disguised Toast stated that people had assumed he must have had previous DMCA strikes, since his ban was supposedly "a month long," making it seem more serious than Pokimane's suspension. He also addressed comments about how he must have "not expected" to get hit with a DMCA. Disguised Toast said he had been waiting for the strike, but he thought it would kick in sooner than it did.

As for the purpose behind his actions? While he said that it was about scaring people away from streaming anime, he also stated that he wanted to shine a light on the current DMCA system on Twitch, which he believes is broken. While he isn't upset about the strike he received, he did point out the fact that Hasan Piker was seemingly suspended over a false DMCA claim. Ultimately, the issue Twitch is currently facing is that the television shows streamers are watching on Twitch are copyrighted property. While these companies have a right to report streamers showing their property in a live broadcast, Disguised Toast takes issue with the fact that anyone can report the copyrighted content and get it taken down, not just the owners of the content.