Esports tournament organizers ESL has once again run into a new controversy. One of the most successful and established tournament organizers, ESL asked one of the teams participating in their online qualifiers to stop their live stream. This was obviously a direct violation of their rules. However, two different rulebooks have surfaced each with directly contradicting broadcasting rules.

This incident is quite different from ESL’s DMCA notices to Admiralbulldog and BSJ a few months ago. There are technical differences, however, ESL definitely could have handled this incident in a much better manner.

ESL asks Mythic players to stop streaming their matches

During a BO3 match between Mythic and Eunited for ESL One Cologne NA qualifiers, ESL admins asked Mythic players to stop streaming live the match on their Twitch Channels. The decision was a very unpopular one as Mythic is one of the largest Counter-Strike streaming group of players on Twitch.

After the first map, the ESL admins asked Mythic players to stop streaming or forfeit their match. The ESL match was a North American open qualifier match. The two teams were playing in the semifinals and Mythic subsequently forfeit the match. The Mythic players were live streaming their individual POV ( Point of View) to their fan following. Collectively the players had over 8000 live viewers on Twitch.

stream every match of the @ESL qualifier. MID BO3 AFTER TAKING THE FIRST MAP WE ARE TOLD WE HAVE TO TURN OFF OUR STREAM OR FF. unreal — fl0m (@fl0mtv) May 3, 2018

But ESL admins’ decision to ask them to stop streaming definitely did not go down well with the players and subsequently the community. ESL cited the rulebook while asking the players to stop streaming.

The ESL Rulebook:

2.5.1 Rights All broadcasting rights of ESL One are owned by the Turtle Entertainment GmbH. This includes but is not limited to: IRC bots, shoutcast streams, video streams, GOTV, replays, demos or TV broadcasts. 2.5.2 Waiving These Rights Turtle Entertainment GmbH has the right to award broadcasting rights for one or multiple matches to a third party or the participants themselves. In such cases the broadcasts must have been arranged with a head admin before the start of the match. For the necessary contact details please look at point 1.8.1 and make sure any additional broadcast has been approved before the match in question starts. (https://play.eslgaming.com/broadcast) 2.5.3 Player Responsibility: Players cannot refuse to have their matches broadcast by ESL-authorized broadcasts (https://play.eslgaming.com/broadcast), nor can they choose in what manner the match will be broadcast. The broadcast can only be rejected by an admin. The player agrees to make sufficient accommodation so that broadcasting of matches can take place.

ESL ADMINS TELLING MYTHIC MEMBERS TO CLOSE THEIR STREAM BECAUSE NO ONE IS WATCHING ON FACEBOOK pic.twitter.com/zZZ3Ab3YKP — Haci (@DonHaci) May 3, 2018

The rules clearly state that the broadcasting is solely the right of ESL. ESL can choose to award broadcasting rights to players or other parties. However, the admins need to approve such decisions before the start of the match.

In this particular case, it is obvious that no communication regarding the broadcasting had taken place. The Mythic players decided to stream their POV of their own accord.

Multiple rulebooks create confusion.

However, it does seem that ESL had not updated their website with the adequate rulebook.One of the Mythic players, Fl0m pointed out that ESL rules allowed the players to stream the matches. The rules which are found on ESLgaming website, clearly allow players to stream their matches unless contacted for otherwise.

ESL will contact any player or team if they wish to broadcast one of their matches. If no contact is made, individual players are allowed to arrange their own broadcasts.

Obviously, in this particular case, there was no contact between the players and ESL before the start of the match. The players had obviously done due diligence to check up on the rules before the start of the match. However, if ESL had not updated their website with the adequate rules should the players be held at fault?

Were Mythic players within their rights to stream?

The Mythic players chose to stream their match POV without consulting the ESL admins. They have been doing the same for most of their tournaments and regularly garner a decent viewer base. In contrast, the ESL facebook live stream had a viewership count lower than 100. For a Tournament organizer on the scale of ESL, this is definitely a big letdown.

Another day, another controversy surrounding the right to stream gameplay from someone else’s event. Organizers do NOT own the rights to gameplay. Period. 3rd parties can stream your event through a demo, DotaTV, etc. But, rules CAN stop participants from doing so via contract. — Bryce Blum (@esportslaw) May 4, 2018

However, ESL might well be within their rights to ask players to turn off their streams. As already mentioned in their rulebook, they do have control over whether to allow players to stream their tournament matches or not.

Differences with the ESL – Dota 2 controversy

A few weeks ago, ESL had run into a similar situation for Dota 2 as well. Just after their Facebook deal, ESL would stream their next event on Facebook. The event did not see great viewership and the Dota 2 community was vividly against the platform.

https://twitter.com/esportslaw/status/992235785104408577?s=19

While the exact details of Valve’s statement are provided below, you can also read EsportsLaw’s ( Bryce Blum) Reddit post about the issue here.

Only Valve can issue DMCA notices

ESL issued DMCA notices to streamers live-streaming the match on Twitch. However, a DMCA notice can only be issued by the owner of the IP, in this case, Valve. The game publisher came down and asserted their position in the case.

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).

This statement was very important to establish their authority over their IP. Since Valve owns the Intellectual Property for Dota 2 it would be illegal for ESL or any third party to issue DMCA notices.

Public Streaming of DotaTV

DotaTV is the spectating feature for all live games. It is a feature of the Dota 2 Game client. One can access it via the Watch Tab within the game. Well known streamers such as AdmiralBulldog and BSJ were streaming ESL matches via DotaTV. But ESL issued DMCA notices to their channels. Valve was quick to publicly announce that BSJ and Bulldog were within their rights to stream content off 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.

These two pointers established Valve’s authority over their content. While only Valve would be able to issue DMCA notices for their game, they were still mindful of the fact that ESL can issue notices for their content. This would include ESL casters, ESL observers and other content which ESL adds on top of the regular gameplay.

This appears to be a different situation than the Dota stuff. That was people using public DotaTV to go into matches and then broadcast. This is the players directly broadcasting their gameplay. So it still sounds like ESL screwed up, but this is not what valve blogged about. — Scott Smith (@SirScoots) May 4, 2018

The second point is basically Valve allowing almost anyone to stream matches off DotaTV. However, they have made it clear that these permissions were mainly for non-commercial community figures. Competing businesses cannot stream content which does not belong to them. Ultimately the final decision would rest with Valve and no one else.

The Mythic situation is different from the Dota 2 episode

ESL issued DMCA notices to certain streamers for streaming Dota 2 matches. This directly infringed upon Valve’s rights as the rightful IP owner. ESL rules clearly state that teams are not allowed to stream ESL One matches. They would be subject to forfeit in the event of them not following these rules .

Valve cannot interfere in this situation because the rules specify that ESL holds the right to remove a team from the tournament in case of a breach. Any team participating in the event is subject to these rules.

So while ESL is within their rights to stop Mythic players from streaming their matches, they could have handled it better. Waiting till after the match and not forcing the players to choose between forfeiting or stop streaming in the middle of a series definitely seemed to be in poor taste.

Going Forward

ESL however, has two rulebooks which cover their broadcasting rules. The rules stated in both the rulebooks directly contradict each other. This seems an overlook on their part which is why they should not have enforced one rulebook selectively. It is wrong on the part of the tournament organizer to not update their terms of services.

That doesn’t mean they went about it the right way. ESL should have notified Mythic far earlier about the ruling, but since they had no plans to stream the earlier Open Quali. matches nothing was ever said. There’s a lot of outrage, but we should work to prevent things like this. — eU Skyler (@RelyksOG) May 4, 2018

The Mythic players, in this instance, are correct in their stance. Unless ESL changes their rulebooks to reflect the same rules, they will repeatedly face such situations. The ESL PR has already apologized for their handling of the Dota 2 situation, and we expect another statement to come out soon.

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