GTA 5: Players donate € 5,000 to German Twitch streamers so that they can sue
In GTA 5 there is a conflict between two German Twitch streamers on a roleplay server. The streamer Justus Henker was banned from the private GTA-5 server Luckey V and now wants to sue the operator. Fans support him with large donations. We had a conversation with the streamer on MeinMMO and asked him how the lawsuit came about.
What is the lawsuit about?
- The streamer Justus Henker (4,641 followers on Twitch) played on the German roleplay server for GTA 5, LuckeyV, stood in front of the poster of a scantily clad woman in his apartment and said: “Take it in your hand, Ariane” . The support of the server banned the streamer for a few days, it was seen as a “sexual act”, apparently the suggestion of masturbation.
- A conflict escalated from the situation: The server operator, Dennis “Heideltraut” Werth (174,491 followers on Twitch), dealt with this incident in a stream. Justus Henker responded to this stream with a video. Werth then had this video taken offline with a copyright strike.
- Justus Henker saw in this an injustice that he did not want to accept. He announced that he would be suing Dennis Werth in the United States and launched a fundraising appeal. He has already collected € 5,000 for the lawsuit.
We described the incident in detail about two weeks ago in an article on MeinMMO:
GTA 5: Twitch streamer banned for sex offense, wants to sue German server boss
We conducted an interview with Justus Henker.
MeinMMO: Have you ever filed a private lawsuit against whom or where does the enthusiasm for the justice system come from, that you play a public prosecutor in your free time?
Justus Henker: In my private life I have never felt the need to sue anyone. I’m not just playing a prosecutor. The figure Justus Henker was already a revolutionary, resistance fighter, lawyer, journalist, theater director, actor and currently she is a judge on the Skyline-V.de project.
I find it appealing in a game that is full of violence to play a character who represents a counterpart to supposed reason, but who is also full of quirks itself. I enjoy starting where the shooter stops with others, namely when the characters are on the ground.
My character tries in vain to reach the others and to come to terms with what happened, although the person concerned does not even have something like that on their screen. Unfortunately, my character is fighting a fight against windmills, like Don Quixote.
The accusation of a sexual act in front of the woman’s poster seems to be indignant Justus Henker:
Why do people donate € 500 for a lawsuit like this?
I think the sums involved are amazing. According to the page on which your appeal for donations runs, there are at least 10 individual donations of € 100 each for the lawsuit – some donations are even significantly higher (via steamlabs). How do you explain that people donate € 250, € 300 or even € 500 so that they can go through with their lawsuit?
First of all, I have to thank my regular viewers for taking part so well. More than € 5,000 were donated in the first five days. But that’s also because Heideltraut makes it very easy for me. Among the donors are also many of his earlier victims whom he insulted in front of up to 3,000 viewers or who equated role and player, as in my case.
Heideltraut has many fans, but his ban lists probably contain more names. He has created his own bubble from which you can be banned even if you express the slightest bit of criticism.
How exactly did the lawsuit come about?
First of all, there is currently no lawsuit. Our US attorneys are busy getting this off the ground. The story of how it came about is quickly told. At the beginning there was a timeban of his project. I criticized it in my stream, but ultimately accepted it, even though it was arbitrary.
The next day, Heideltraut struck me in a live stream and put me in an unacceptable light and it became clear that he could not have seen my criticism himself, but only reported from hearsay.
I then took this as an opportunity to make a direct reaction stream, because I couldn’t leave the many false claims as they were.
Well, and then he freaked out on the livestream and did what he always does when dealing with criticism. I was given legal means such as the Network Enforcement Act (D), a DMCA takedown notice (US law) and, to top it off, I was permanently banned from his server project. All of this happened during his live broadcast. The content was instantly banned from Twitch. He did what he unfortunately does all too often when criticized: he reacted with censorship. At the same time, two legal actions were opened directly against me. While the matter with the NetzDG was quickly off the table, there is still an abusive DMCA strike in the room, which I have to defend myself against in order to protect myself against claims for damages from him.
The following is also important to me: The blockade of our content was lifted by Twitch solely because of my reply. It took a month before the video was actually reactivated.
When I followed that, I saw that the server operator Dennis Werth had actually already ended the matter and wanted to unbind it again. But then the conflict boiled up again – how did it come about?
There were talks. However, no agreement was reached. I also feel deceived. Because everything that came from the other side was only aimed at disguising one’s own actions and defaming myself as an attacker, while I only defend myself against his legal measures.
The climax of this sad show was his public advice to just leave it at that. Every streamer would eventually have three copyright strikes free before being banned from Twitch. So I should just accept this. Imagine being wrongly accused and advised to just swallow the punishment, which in turn amounts to an admission of guilt. I find that presumptuous. Especially since I would provide him with the basis to enforce claims for damages against me.
Twitch streamer says it owes it to donors to pull off the lawsuit
How much money have you raised so far and do you really want to go ahead with the lawsuit in the US?
We reached our first milestone in just five days and over € 5,000 was donated. I had to read the funniest things about it. The whole thing is, for example, just an “exit scam”.
We owe it to the donors: to move things forward as planned, in order to finally have the written confirmation in our hands: that I was illegally censored by the streamer Heideltraut under abuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.
Mr. Hangman, thank you for talking to us.
On MeinMMO, we keep dealing with streamers from Germany:
The currently 5 biggest streamers in Germany: who they are and what they do
Reference-mein-mmo.de