If you are a content creator or streamer, then you know the OBS and the Streamlabs OBS — two popular tools to do live broadcasts on Facebook, YouTube and Twitch networks. However, recently Streamlabs OBS has been in a deep crisis after a series of irregularities in its development were revealed.
Two days ago, Streamlabs, previously called Streamlabs OBS, removed the OBS from its name after the chaos that occurred days before.
The company has been accused of illegally using the acronym OBS, which stands for Open Broadcaster Software. This is the code and the standard of OBS Studio. And the worst thing is that Streamlabs asked the OBS Studio developers for permission to use ‘OBS’ on their behalf, and that request was denied. Still, they used that name anyway.
Finally, Streamlabs released a statement announcing a rectification — it will proceed to eliminate the ‘OBS’ from its name and will assume “all responsibility for its actions.”
But that belated rectification comes at a time when numerous voices from the streaming ‘world’ are charging Streamlabs over an even bigger and more recent controversy surrounding its new Streamlabs Studio product.
A few days ago, Streamlabs announced the launch of another tool in collaboration with Twitch and Xbox — a web-based streaming studio, Streamlabs Studio, designed to help gamers in the video game field to broadcast their games online.
But another streaming tool development company, Lightstream, accused that Streamlabs had plagiarized both the website and the reviews. Lightstream has published a tweet in which it shows the templates they offer, along with those that Streamlabs has included in its new product, Streamlabs Studio.
It is not just an aesthetic issue; streamer iamBrandon claimed on Twitter on Tuesday that even the user reviews collected on the Streamlabs site are a copy.
Now, multitudes of streamers are pointing out Streamlabs for having copied both the software concept and the Lightstream web and are announcing their imminent abandonment of their applications if they don’t rectify as soon as possible.