Stream Owner Challenges Riot Games over Streaming Rights
The person in charge of the SpectateFaker Twitch channel is daring Riot Games to take it down in an attempt to get the company to clarify their stance on streaming rights.
SpectateFaker Receives DMCA Takedown Notice
SpectateFaker, a stream that checks for solo queue games of SK Telecom T1 player Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok and streams them using the League of Legends client, received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice sent by streaming platform Azubu last week.
Is Azubu within their Rights to Issue a DMCA Notice?
Any League of Legends solo queue game is open for anyone to spectate if they have a League account. But Lee signed a contract to stream exclusively on the Azubu platform in Sep. 2014. The DMCA is designed to allow content owners to protect their copyrighted material. But does Azubu have the right to DMCA content that’s freely available inside Riot Games’ own League of Legends client?
The easy legal answer is no, as outlined by esports lawyer Bryce Blum on the Daily Dot. Riot Games, the party that owns the content displayed through any of these League streams, is the only company with a right to issue a DMCA.
Riot Games Faces Controversy and Questions about Content Ownership
That’s caused a firestorm in the League community after journalist Travis Gafford brought the issue to light, as the important questions of content ownership, the relationships between players and streaming platforms, and Riot Games itself came into question.
Ultimatum to Riot Games
SpectateFaker has issued an ultimatum to Riot Games: the channel stays until they flex their legal muscle to shut it down. The stream’s owner believes that these issues need to be debated for the future of League of Legends and esports.
Who Owns the Content?
He notes that in the League terms of use, users sign away all their rights of ownership. That means Faker and Azubu don’t own the product SpectateFaker is streaming to the internet; Riot Games does. And the company needs to figure out just what that means for parties like Faker and Azubu, who are monetizing and selling that content.
Riot Games’ Inconsistent Response
Riot Games cofounder Marc “Tryndamere” Merrill took to social media to outline the company’s position on the issue, coming to the conclusion that the stream should stop in order to protect Faker. However, Merrill’s original response was wishy-washy and noncommittal, and his second missed critical details to the issue at hand.
Merrill’s final stance seems to be one centered around the morality of so-called “e-stalking.” Whether Faker himself feels that way is unclear, but the player did request that the stream be taken down.
Of course, Riot Games’ in-game spectator client essentially does the same thing as the SpectateFaker stream, just in a less public way. It allows anyone to spectate any player at will, without their consent. Riot Games could potentially give players an opt-out, but that has a host of its own issues.
Originally, SpectateFaker planned to acquiesce to Riot Games’ and Faker’s request that the stream be taken down, due to the player’s own request. But now, SpectateFaker is taking a stand to force Riot Games to adopt a harder stance on the issue. “I won’t be listening to anyone else from Riot or on Reddit lecture me about morals anymore”, the SpectateFaker owner wrote. “To those people I say, I’m doing this stream because I can legally and it’s allowed by League of Legends’ legal terms.” Now, Riot Games has to put its money where its mouth is and sort out a mess their own policies have created.
SpectateFaker, Twitch channel, Riot Games, streaming rights, SK Telecom T1, Faker, League of Legends, DMCA, Azubu, content ownership, esports, Marc Merrill, e-stalking, in-game spectator client.