The occasionally dicey world of community casting Dota 2 just got a little more treacherous as caster Robbnroll found himself DMCA’d by tournament operator FISSURE.
Robbnroll is a popular community caster in Dota 2 that many people follow. Unfortunately, according to a Reddit post made by him on May 12, his Twitch channel was shut down following a copyright strike against his channel from Fissure. Here’s what happened.
Image Credit: FISSURE
Robbnroll Hit By Allegedly Spurious DMCA by FISSURE
In a Reddit post from yesterday, Robbnroll explained that his Twitch channel was shut down while covering the OG /Edge series. Following the events, it became clear that he had a copyright strike from “FISURA LLC.” Upon further review, he noticed that the company’s contact email is, in fact, tournament organizer FISSURE.
The Reddit post explains how he tried reaching out to the company. However, the email “did no go anywhere,” and according to Robbnroll, there was no attempt to reach out to him and correct the situation as it was stated in the Valve DotaTV guidelines.
The interesting thing is that Robbnroll uses his own voice and camera while using DotaTV, so what he does is not go against the T&C. Despite that, Fissure used a false DMCA, resulting in his Twitch channel being shut down.
A DMCA, for clarity, is shorthand for a takedown request at the behest of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, a US law that allows rights holders to take down copyrighted works on request. Websites are compelled often by legality to follow these requests. However, this legal precedent has become rifle with misuse, as copyright trolls and other bad actors use it to claim works which do not fall under the DMCA or have fair use rights. Under the Valve DotaTV guidelines, use of DotaTV would not constitute any breach of the DMCA.
What Now?
Well, Robbnroll said in his post that he does not expect anything to happen after it. However, he wanted to bring to light Fissure’s practices because, according to him, it is not the first time the company has issued a false DMCA.
A lot of people on Reddit encouraged the caster to take legal action against the company. It will be interesting to see what happens with this case, because if Robnroll is right and he didn’t do anything wrong, it feels like big corporations can easily “bring down” anyone they do not like.
Luckily at the time of writing Robbnroll’s channel looks like it has been fully reinstated, but only time will tell if it stays that way.