Activision reportedly filed a DMCA complaint against Scump over CDL watch party

Activision is alleged to have filed a DMCA complaint against Seth “Scump” Abner, who hosted a CDL Stage 1 Qualifiers watch party on Twitch.

Activision took down a Call of Duty League (CDL) watch party feed that Seth “Scump” Abner was running on Twitch when he was presenting the Miami Heretics vs. Las Vegas Legion match.  Activison’s exclusive CDL 2023 arrangement with YouTube seems to be the cause of the DMCA strike.

Scump’s CDL watch party today was taken down by Activision pic.twitter.com/5jpK8KJBgB

— CharlieIntel (@charlieINTEL) December 15, 2023

Whatever the motivation, this action will restrict the Call of Duty League’s potential reach. Through his CDL watch parties, the former professional player turned Twitch broadcaster has been one of the most popular CoD content creators and has been bringing in a significant amount of viewers.

The CDL viewership had a notable increase in viewership once Scump began hosting watch parties in the early months of 2023. With a peak audience of around 302,000 and an average of 153K viewers, CDL Major 2 attracted more viewership compared to the previous Major.

With a peak audience of 335,170, Major 3 saw an even greater boost in viewership, outplaying any prior major of 2023 in viewership. His stellar reputation in the community and professional playing background made Activision’s decision to cancel his CDL watch party all the more surprising.

Why did Activision take down Scump’s CDL watch party?

Activision mandates that watch-party streaming can only take place on YouTube as a result of the CDL renewing its exclusivity arrangement with the platform. This implies that Twitch, a platform with a far bigger viewership for broadcasters, is left out of the action. So Scump got around this requirement in the same way that they did, instead of following their Watch Party regulations.

Instead of following their Watch Party guidelines, Scump got around this restriction in the same way as a lot of other streamers. He displayed his reactions to the matches and the reactions of his buddies.

Activision, however, abruptly chose to stop his feed even though Scump was not even displaying the CDL matches. Activision may have removed Scump’s watch party because he was multi-streaming on YouTube and Twitch. ZooMaa, the host of The Flank and a former professional, said a week ago that content created had received warnings not to multi-stream their work on Twitch.

Scump has not yet made a statement on the matter in public, and his stream has not resumed on either platform. The CDL community immediately expressed its displeasure in the YouTube chat of the official CDL League stream. In response to the decision, #FreeScump soon trended on platform X, with many people taking to social media to voice their frustration.

Header: Scump/Twitch