Streaming a game publicly before its release – can that be legal? This Dragon's Dogma 2 player found out by streaming the game ahead of release.
On Twitch, there's already quite a bit of content being streamed about the upcoming Dragon's Dogma 2. However, 99.9% of it consists of the already available Character Creator, which gives players incredible freedom in creating their characters that they can take into the main game upon release. But now, a streamer popped up, showing actual gameplay of Dragon's Dogma 2 and claimed he wasn't doing anything illegal.
"There's Nothing Illegal About It" – Streamer Plays Dragon's Dogma 2 Live Before Release
How can that be? Dragon's Dogma 2 officially releases on March 22, and yet a player has already streamed 4 hours of gameplay almost a week before. Well, sometimes retailers put physical copies of new games on the shelves prematurely, allowing customers to legally acquire them. That's also what happened in this case, and the player seized the opportunity to attract Twitch viewers with an exclusive glimpse.
I legally bought a copy and I have a receipt for it. There's nothing illegal about the way that I'm playing at all.
In the chat, the streamer was repeatedly reminded that Capcom surely wouldn't tolerate someone showing gameplay of an unreleased game on the internet before the embargo lifts.
However, the streamer was unaware of any wrongdoing and justified his actions by stating that he legally purchased the game. He also added that he was playing with a VPN, presumably to prevent Capcom from tracking him down. However, this precaution didn't fully work.
With this stunt, the small channel with under 50 followers almost reached 1400 viewers; a success that was very short-lived. After about four hours of streaming, his channel was banned by Twitch with the notice "Content from this channel has been removed at the request of the copyright holder." Currently, all stream recordings are being meticulously removed from the internet by Capcom.
So, if you ever find yourself in the fortunate position of getting hold of a game before its release, it's best to refrain from streaming. Instead, simply enjoy the privilege of starting to play earlier than planned in a private setting and no one will come after you.