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Dota 2 tournament organisers are clashing with streamersValid beef, invalid copyright action

Valid beef, invalid copyright action

On this fine Friday afternoon, join me as I descend into the morality swamp. Around five days ago, the organisers ofDota 2tournament WePlay Pushka sent a copyright strike against “Coldfox”, a YouTuber who broadcast the tournament on his personal channel. Coldfox recorded the tournament from in-game, separately to the organiser’s stream, and says he obeyed all of Valve’s rules. Valve have previously said only they are legally allowed to send DMCA takedown notices against such content. After at least 48 hours of the videos being taken down, WePlay rescinded the copyright notice.

Because there’s been confusion before around broadcasting games from DotaTV, Valve explainedin 2018: “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).” Which Coldfox insists he doesn’t.

Valve said in 2018 that they wanted the broadcasting rules to be “flexible” to allow “up and coming casters” or “community figures” to “occasionally” broadcast DotaTV matches, but not to “allow commercial organisation like BTS to compete with the primary stream.” Does Coldfox cross the line? And is it WePlay’s place to decide? After all, Valve said: “It’ll be our judgement alone on who violates this guideline and not any other third party’s.”

Valve’s stance does seem like a not-awful, albeit flawed, compromise between the interests of different groups.

Obviously both groups are partly in this for personal gain, and that’s not intrinsically bad. Everyone needs to make a living. But beyond that, both groups are also attempting to make a case for why their way is ultimately best for the health of esports and competitive Dota 2. Streamers generate more interest in the game, and make more people likely to watch future tournaments. At the same time, they’re undeniably cashing in on the work of the organisers, even if they obey all of Valve’s guidelines.

ESL vice president Ulrich Schulze raises that issue, along with other valid problems with Valve’s stance inthis Twitter thread.

So, where have we landed? WePlay shouldn’t have sent Coldfox a DMCA copyright strike. But should he have been streaming WePlay’s tournament in the first place? Potentially not.