ESL recently issued DMCA notices in a very hopeful situation wherein they wanted to pressure third party streamers. Valve has clarified that streamers can stream games off Dota TV as long as they do not use content unique to the tournament organizers. But with the recent Facebook deal getting a lot of flak from the community, ESL was quick to issue DMCA notices to several streamers.
The full statement from valve can be read here.
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.
