Valve Weighs in on ESL's DMCA Takedowns with Dota 2

ESL, Originally known as Electronic Sports League, has been causing a stir lately with a Dota 2 Tournament streamed exclusively on Facebook. Now Dota developers Valve have stepped in to make a statement.

Some prefacing may be required. ESL had a deal with Facebook to stream a tournament on their Livestream platform. This method proved to be so unpopular that others were instead spectating the games via DotaTV, a spectator feature, and live streaming that on their own Twitch account. The fan-made twitch streams were raking in larger view numbers than the official stream. ESL began issuing DCMA takedowns of these streams, claiming they are stealing their content.

To compare to sports: Imagine going to a college football game, and recording the game on a camera, then NFL, who recorded the game with their own camera, is claiming you stole their content.

Valve has noticed the outrage resulting from these actions and made a statement.

"No one besides Valve is allowed to send DMCA notices for games streamed off of DotaTV that arent using the broadcasters unique content (camera movements, voice, etc)."

That said, they clarify that DotaTV is not intended to be used for commercial organizations to compete with the primary stream, but that they will be the ones to judge if the situation violates their guidelines.

In many words, this was Valve's way of saying that ESL abused their power and that they can put us all in our place if they wanted. Something that ESL may have forgotten.