Mike "MLPDota" Le Phoenix is an independent Dota 2 caster who recently received a DMCA Takedown from ESL for casting ESL One Genting 2018 games on Jan. 24. He received a 24-hour ban from Twitch and decided against casting the rest of the tournament. As the ESL situation has started to become clearer and clearer, it appears MLPDota will cast the games once again.
Considering they've now advised they will NOT be taking down streams which aren't monetized/commercial(Like mine wasn't), I'm considering casting them again. Assuming my stream is back online in time that is, which it isn't right now. For the record, I'm not a partner on twitch.
— Mike Le Phoenix (@MLPDotA) January 25, 2018
There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the recent ESL streams since the company signed an exclusive streaming deal with Facebook. This has been met with a lot of vitriol from the community and many have chosen to find independent streams on Twitch to watch the games.
Now ESL has been taking down these streams, citing copyright claims and has been getting streamers like MLPDota banned from Twitch. This too has incited the Dota 2 fanbase with many people unwilling or unable to find the games on Facebook.
As always, this issue is not exactly as black and white as many people believe it to be. In a Reddit post by Bryce Blum, who runs an esports law firm, copyright law is extremely difficult to traverse. Also, Valve has not done a good job at clarifying who can broadcast what games, which leaves a lot of gray areas for these DMCA takedowns to happen.
No doubt this whole controversy will force Valve to explain exactly who can and can not broadcast games and what requirements they need to meet in order to do so.
Cover photo courtesy of MLPDota's Twitter
