It seems that the streaming woes of SK Telecom T1 are not over yet. Soon after the Twitch stream debacle ended, another controversy engulfed SKT and the League of Legends community. Apparently, SKT is making copyright claims in order to take down YouTube videos that feature SKT players' Ranked Game highlights.



The earliest record of this controversy seems to go back to last week, when a reddit user /u/Mqtuan_1998 posted a thread about the videos being taken down by someone who claims to be working for SKT. As the subreddit is relatively small, the post did not receive much attention and was for the most part, overlooked.



Such was not the case when /u/Catfish_BlLLY posted a more detailed thread a few days ago about the DMCA claims on /r/leagueoflegends, as it quickly hit the top of the subreddit, backed by a lot of enraged fans. It drew the attention of well-known figures, including Christopher “MonteCristo” Mykles and Erik "DoA" Lonnquist, and they were all quite hostile towards SKT at first. If these claims continued, it could mean the end of watching pro players' footage on Youtube.





However, people started to doubt the authenticity of the emails and DMCA claims when the emails were revealed to be from a Gmail account. Also, the name of the Youtube channel that requested the DMCA takedown was different from SKT's official Youtube channel.



This wasn't the first time that SKT has been involved in a copyright issue. In 2015, Azubu, a streaming service that had exclusive rights to stream LCK players at that time, tried to take down SpectateFaker, a Twitch channel that aired Faker's games. At the time, it stirred a huge debate regarding who has ownership over the a player’s gameplay. The issue was concluded when Riot Games issued an official statement saying that Riot Games owned the gameplay content, and they will be "honoring Faker’s request and will pursue a takedown of the stream."



This time, however, the situation is different, as videos that have been on YouTube for months were supposedly being taken down by 'SK telecom T1'. This wasn't just limited to one or two YouTube content creators, but several creators who had videos that featured SKT players in game.





Given the nature of this controversy, it was unlikely to end unless there was an official statement from either Riot Games or SKT. So we, InvenGlobal, contacted officials from both SK Telecom and Riot Games Korea to find out whether they were aware of this issue.



During the phone call, the SKT official stated that "We are aware of the issues surrounding the DMCA claims. Both SKT and Riot Games will release a detailed official statement regarding this matter soon." Riot Games Korea gave a similar response, with an official stating “Our eSports team is currently meeting with SKT officials, and we will be making an official statement soon.”





Although these answers were less concrete than we all would have liked, the fans and content creators may rest a bit easier knowing that the officials are not only aware of the issue, but are actively discussing solutions right now, and will be making an official statement regarding this issue very soon. As it stands now, the best we can do is wait patiently; hopefully, officials will be able to create a solution that works out well for the fans, content creators, and of course, the players.