[UPDATE] ESL DOTA abuses DMCA features to strike down commentators

[Terryv]

2 hours ago, AGrider said:

From google Im to understand that ESL is English as a Second Language?  Or is there another acronym whose definition has been left out of the article?

ESL = e-sports league

[Guest]

Just stream it on YouTube.

[Energycore]

4 hours ago, SC2Mitch said:

Streamer could argue that ESL violated the terms (and the law) of a DMCA strike against their channel and effectively made them lose out on streaming ad revenue, subs and other partnership agreements. I don't know, I'm not a lawyer. 

They could, but paying for the suit would probably cost more than the damages they claim

 

2 hours ago, AGrider said:

From google Im to understand that ESL is English as a Second Language?  Or is there another acronym whose definition has been left out of the article?

I believe it's Electronic Sports League.

[Evanair]

5 hours ago, SC2Mitch said:

I doubt Valve would give ESL full green light to use a legal action (DMCA) against streamers to strike down completely fair community commentary which  doesn't use any kind of ESL assets

There is a reason you cannot record video of a football game, add commentary, and broadcast it yourself without paying license fees, with or without the overlays.

 

News organizations, which add commentary to video, only uses 10 second clips for a reason because of copyright law.

 

I'm not saying it IS in the contract, but without having it gone over by a lawyer,  ESL could be looking to crack down on things similar to the NFL and other sports channels, regardless of whatever commentary you want to add to it.

 

You're making money off their content, so they have all rights to control it.  If you feel it was fair use, you can counter claim or counter sue. 

[JuNex03]

3 hours ago, Evanair said:

There is a reason you cannot record video of a football game, add commentary, and broadcast it yourself without paying license fees, with or without the overlays.

 

News organizations, which add commentary to video, only uses 10 second clips for a reason because of copyright law.

 

I'm not saying it IS in the contract, but without having it gone over by a lawyer,  ESL could be looking to crack down on things similar to the NFL and other sports channels, regardless of whatever commentary you want to add to it.

 

You're making money off their content, so they have all rights to control it.  If you feel it was fair use, you can counter claim or counter sue. 

Isn't that because the owners don't allow it and have specific rules on how to use said clips? Problem is in this instance the actual owners allow it using its own service.

"To that end, in addition to the official, fully-produced streams from the tournament organizer itself, we believe that anyone should be able to broadcast a match from DotaTV for their audience. However, we don’t think they should do so in a commercial manner or in a way that directly competes with the tournament organizer’s stream. This means no advertising/branding overlays, and no sponsorships. It also means not using any of the official broadcast’s content such as caster audio, camerawork, overlays, interstitial content, and so on. Finally, this is not permission for studios to broadcast each other’s events. In general, everyone should play nice together, and we think the boundaries should be pretty clear. "

 

"None of the casters was taking any kind of advertising nor displaying any kind of overlays that will benefit them mutually and they were using the dotaTV features which weren't the official broadcaster's content. ESL doesn't own DOTA so they don't have any kind of legal right to issue legal claims against content they don't own. My thoughts on this are very clear. ESL issued illegal DMCA strikes against community casters who was doing nothing wrong. ESL picked Facebook over twitch for an obscured amount of money and the community backlashed. Total Biscuit took to Twitter to vent his frustration."

[ItsMitch]

30 minutes ago, JuNex03 said:

Isn't that because the owners don't allow it and have specific rules on how to use said clips? Problem is in this instance the actual owners allow it using its own service.

 

"To that end, in addition to the official, fully-produced streams from the tournament organizer itself, we believe that anyone should be able to broadcast a match from DotaTV for their audience. However, we don’t think they should do so in a commercial manner or in a way that directly competes with the tournament organizer’s stream. This means no advertising/branding overlays, and no sponsorships. It also means not using any of the official broadcast’s content such as caster audio, camerawork, overlays, interstitial content, and so on. Finally, this is not permission for studios to broadcast each other’s events. In general, everyone should play nice together, and we think the boundaries should be pretty clear. "

 

"None of the casters was taking any kind of advertising nor displaying any kind of overlays that will benefit them mutually and they were using the dotaTV features which weren't the official broadcaster's content. ESL doesn't own DOTA so they don't have any kind of legal right to issue legal claims against content they don't own. My thoughts on this are very clear. ESL issued illegal DMCA strikes against community casters who was doing nothing wrong. ESL picked Facebook over twitch for an obscured amount of money and the community backlashed. Total Biscuit took to Twitter to vent his frustration."

 

Half of this post is fucked for dark theme users.

[JuNex03]

3 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

Half of this post is fucked for dark theme users.

fix'd

[wanderingfool2]

11 hours ago, The Benjamins said:

The difference is that ESL does not own the game, and the game owns allow spectating and streaming the game and its features.

 

so the argument becomes does the ESL own the game play actions?

just the same as does PUBG own the rights to the replay actions of PUBG replays?

Can any game developer or tournament organised own the right to actions in a game to the point can they take down videos of said gameplay?

Well, I would argue they still have the copyright's of the stream.  The owning of the game material doesn't make too much of a difference, but rather that they hosted the event.  It is like e-books, if a book store made a sponsored event where someone famous did a reading of a popular book live (assuming they had permission by the author) and recorded it to "sell" later, they would own the copyrights.  The act of creating an event, with the concept of streaming is enough to claim copyright (and even though there are other ways that it could stream, doesn't mean that it doesn't violate copyright)

[xAcid9]

Dick move really unless Valve give them full right to do that.

[GDRRiley]

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Well, I would argue they still have the copyright's of the stream.  The owning of the game material doesn't make too much of a difference, but rather that they hosted the event.  It is like e-books, if a book store made a sponsored event where someone famous did a reading of a popular book live (assuming they had permission by the author) and recorded it to "sell" later, they would own the copyrights.  The act of creating an event, with the concept of streaming is enough to claim copyright (and even though there are other ways that it could stream, doesn't mean that it doesn't violate copyright)

the issues is that valve said they could stream it but so could others with DOTA TV. 

it would be if in that recording of the book reading there was 1 crew who was just live streaming for anyone to use and then there was a different one that added graphics other camera angles and such to it.

 

[Evanair]

4 hours ago, JuNex03 said:

We believe that anyone should be able to broadcast a match from DotaTV for their audience. However, we don’t think they should do so in a commercial manner or in a way that directly competes with the tournament organizer’s stream. This means no advertising/branding overlays, and no sponsorships. It also means not using any of the official broadcast’s content such as caster audio, camerawork, overlays, interstitial content, and so on.

Here's the meat and potatoes of the problem.

 

Believe and Should and Think: These are not statements of fact; They are beliefs held and not contractual.  They didn't say that "Anyone is able to..." they said they "believe they should," which in itself are two completely different statements. 

Commercial Manner: Define commercial.  Even if the video itself is not monetized, it can still be considered commercial use due to bringing views to a channel with other videos or streams.

 

Official Broadcasters Content: Again, super vague and subjective. What ESL considers their content is probably anything and everything within the building hosting, anything that has any inkling of content from ESL, anything filmed on their cameras or mics, displayed on their TV's, rain through their cables or internet hosting service/stream.  

 

Copyright is a GIGANTIC net which is setup to protect the original creator of the content, not those who want to use it.  If a content creator of ANY kind (be it commercial enterprise or solo YouTube uploader) feels they have had their copyright violated, most of the time they are correct.  Fair Use is VERY narrow and a fine line to prove in court.

[apm]

39 minutes ago, Evanair said:

sure, but no one said thats its okay or not. random people have been casting tournaments of dota and csgo for years on their own channels.

this problem literally just came up in the last few months, which kinda forced valve to that very vague blogpost.

 

ESL didnt just DMCA one channel, but multiple and harrassed one of the biggest dota streamer, so he had to stop casting it.

[ravenshrike]

17 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Lets go to the football analogy, at a football game it is against copyright to re-air the game. 

The difference is that Valve are not the massive douchnozzles that the NFL is and EXPLICITLY allow anyone to restream so long as the stream is not monetized. You analogy falls flatter than a crepe.

[xtroria]

I'm not sure with the whole law and rules about this so I can't even point out who I think is wrong in the first place.

 

If for example facebook made an agreement with ESL that they should be the exclusive commentated stream, by commentators from the arena or off-stage and this is something valve also agrees with, ESL did something douchy but they are still right in the first place by law. This is due to the fact that these streamers are earning money from a content organized / made by ESL with having broadcast exclusitivity agree with facebook

 

It's similar to using someone else's youtube content in your youtube video IMO. If they allow it, YT will allow it but if they don't your channel can be striked and de-monetized

[jagdtigger]

34 minutes ago, xtroria said:

I'm not sure with the whole law and rules about this so I can't even point out who I think is wrong in the first place.

 

If for example facebook made an agreement with ESL that they should be the exclusive commentated stream, by commentators from the arena or off-stage and this is something valve also agrees with, ESL did something douchy but they are still right in the first place by law. This is due to the fact that these streamers are earning money from a content organized / made by ESL with having broadcast exclusitivity agree with facebook

 

It's similar to using someone else's youtube content in your youtube video IMO. If they allow it, YT will allow it but if they don't your channel can be striked and de-monetized

On 2018. 01. 24. at 11:51 AM, SC2Mitch said:

None of the casters was taking any kind of advertising nor displaying any kind of overlays that will benefit them mutually and they were using the dotaTV features which weren't the official broadcaster's content.

 

[ItsMitch]

ESL has issued a statement but no apology for the streamers they took down:

Quote

 

Hey Dota2-fans,

there has been a very strong community reaction to how we handled non-ESL streams from our Genting event. Earlier today we tweeted something that was meant to clarify how we see it going forward over the next days. A lot of you have wanted further clarification on this tweet:

"ESLOne Genting update & clarification: there will be no actions or takedowns from ESL for unmonetized/non-commercial ESL One Genting streams."

Here are some points that should address most questions:

1) Streamers sitting at home without sponsorships or advertising are completely fine to stream and comment on the games from Genting.

2) Streams that get revenue from community donations or subscriptions will not get taken down

3) When we said “unmonetized streams” we mean streams that do not play ads of their own sponsors as part of their content. This is to ensure that companies that are not sponsors of ESL One Genting are not directly associated with the tournament here

Best regards,

Jonas "bsl" Vikan, ESL Tournament Director

 

No apology at all in this, fuck these twats. 

[apm]

3 hours ago, SC2Mitch said:

ESL has issued a statement but no apology for the streamers they took down:

No apology at all in this, fuck these twats. 

same shit valve said in the blogpost and do you wanna know the punchline?

the 2 channels they DMCAd werent even partnered with twitch, who would even sponsor a stream with no viewers?

one of them had like 60 viewers before this tournament when he got 10k+...

[Evanair]

6 hours ago, SC2Mitch said:

When we said “unmonetized streams” we mean streams that do not play ads of their own sponsors as part of their content. This is to ensure that companies that are not sponsors of ESL One Genting are not directly associated with the tournament here

Here ya go.  Basically, any content that has ads not put there directly by the creator will be a DMCA strike.  Meaning you can put a 10 sec spot of "This video was sponsored by xxx" but you CANNOT monetize the video in any way on YouTube or other platforms.

 

Now the gray area comes what ESL says "not directly associated with the tournament." Does ESL have a right to say that ALL Dota footage will link to the tournament in some way, shape or form?  It's defiantly an argument, and one YouTube is likely to accept as a strike-able offence. Even though they are currently only claiming a specific event footage, it would be easy to prove in court that any footage of DOTA 'steals' revenue from the 'official' tournament of DOTA.  Similar to Football.

 

Based on their claims, actions, and legal challenges to content, I'd personally avoid streaming ANY Dota content in any way, on any platform, directly related to an ESL event or not.  ESL can (and will) claim that your streams compete with theirs and you can (and will) get a strike/ban.

[apm]

1 hour ago, Evanair said:

Here ya go.  Basically, any content that has ads not put there directly by the creator will be a DMCA strike.  Meaning you can put a 10 sec spot of "This video was sponsored by xxx" but you CANNOT monetize the video in any way on YouTube or other platforms.

 

Now the gray area comes what ESL says "not directly associated with the tournament." Does ESL have a right to say that ALL Dota footage will link to the tournament in some way, shape or form?  It's defiantly an argument, and one YouTube is likely to accept as a strike-able offence. Even though they are currently only claiming a specific event footage, it would be easy to prove in court that any footage of DOTA 'steals' revenue from the 'official' tournament of DOTA.  Similar to Football.

 

Based on their claims, actions, and legal challenges to content, I'd personally avoid streaming ANY Dota content in any way, on any platform, directly related to an ESL event or not.  ESL can (and will) claim that your streams compete with theirs and you can (and will) get a strike/ban.

those affected werent even monetizing the streams and probably wont put any of it on youtube.

the only thing i would agree on is that they were direct competition, cuz any other stream is 100% better than the facebook shit and they dont even get close to the viewership they would normally get on twitch or youtube.

[TheSilverNiko]

On 1/24/2018 at 5:55 AM, Master Disaster said:

This isn't news, it's a rant because you're personal preference hasn't been met.

 

A load of gamers being pissed that Facebook got the rights to their game isn't tech news. Heck it's barely news at all, it's just the internet being the internet.

The story wasnt solely about that.

[bakidota]

On 1/24/2018 at 1:08 PM, SC2Mitch said:

That's not even remotely true, a lot of LULs sure but racist? Don't think so. 

If you really think this you are rarely watching dota2, i watch every tournament since summer 2014 so more than 3 and a half years literary every tournament and every tournament the chat is racist. When ever somone says black chat spams TriHard and cmonBruh , whenever someone says monkey chat spams TriHard and cmonBruh , whenever enemy hero steals a rune chat spams MINE TriHard , tbh i can go on with spam comments for days, so toxic af.

[ItsMitch]

2 minutes ago, bakidota said:

If you really think this you are rarely watching dota2, i watch every tournament since summer 2014 so more than 3 and a half years literary every tournament and every tournament the chat is racist. When ever somone says black chat spams TriHard and cmonBruh , whenever someone says monkey chat spams TriHard and cmonBruh , whenever enemy hero steals a rune chat spams MINE TriHard , tbh i can go on with spam comments for days, so toxic af.

You clearly don't watch any esports events that have more than 50k viewers. 

[ItsMitch]

Valve gave a statement out, pretty much telling ESL to go fuck itself when it comes to DMCA strikes

Quote

 

We’ve been seeing a bunch of discussion regarding DotaTV and want to expand on what we’ve said before.

 

The first issue we’ve been seeing discussed is regarding DMCA notices. This one is very simple: No one besides Valve is allowed to send DMCA notices for games streamed off of DotaTV that aren’t using the broadcasters’ unique content (camera movements, voice, etc).

 

The second issue is regarding who is permitted to cast off of DotaTV. We designed the DotaTV guidelines to be flexible in order to allow for up and coming casters, or community figures like BSJ or Bulldog that occasionally watch tournament games on their channel, to be able to stream off of DotaTV. It is not to allow commercial organizations like BTS to compete with the primary stream. It’ll be our judgment alone on who violates this guideline and not any other third party’s.

 

1

http://blog.dota2.com/2018/01/dotatv-streaming/

[sazrocks]

3 minutes ago, SC2Mitch said:

Valve gave a statement out, pretty much telling ESL to go fuck itself when it comes to DMCA strikes

http://blog.dota2.com/2018/01/dotatv-streaming/

Dang that's pretty blunt for Valve.

[ItsMitch]

Just now, sazrocks said:

Dang that's pretty blunt for Valve.

I don't think they was too happy with the backlash from the community tbf. In my shoes, I'd wanna remove the shit in the shoe with one swift flick, not mush it around.