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DotEsports: Valve and Blizzard's ownership of Dota put into question in federal court

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I ran into this in the Artifact thread, I'm surprised there wasn't a thread about it already since this is old news.

Sam Nordmark said:
Valve and Blizzard sued developers Lilith and uCool over a pair of games, Dota Legends and Heroes Charge, that they claimed infringed upon the Dota intellectual property. UCool isn't bothering to argue that the games aren't derivative (Dota is used in one game's title, after all). Instead, it's turning the lawsuit on its head, countering with a claim that Valve and Blizzard's copyrights aren't legitimate in the first place, according to a report in Ars Technica.

https://dotesports.com/dota-2/valve-blizzard-lawsuit-ownership-dota-14753

But what's really fascinating is Judge Breyer's summary.

It is interesting, for me at least, to see modding history filtered through the lens of the copyright court system, giving us such paragraphs as:
The various video games at issue in this copyright case take players to fantastical worlds populated by elves, demons, and at least one elf-demon. The earliest of these games, Plaintiff Blizzard Entertainment’s “Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos,” lets them build their own fantastical worlds populated by custom characters. Playing off the word modification, players call this process “modding” and their modding creations “mods.”

uCool counters that DotA Allstars is a collective work because Guinsoo and Icefrog—and Meian and Madcow before them—took the most popular DotA heroes and
arranged them into a new game. See MPSJ at 17. But by that logic Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Walt Disney Studios 2015) would be a collective work because it arranged the most popular Star Wars heroes, settings, and one-liners into a new movie. The same might be said of Love Actually (Universal Pictures 2003), given its all-star cast and web of different storylines. But Castaway (20th Century Fox 2000), with its solitary protagonist and even more solitary plot, would presumably be a unitary work.

Worth a read if you like seeing video game culture intersect with real life.

Btw this is DotA Legends:
20140618142943_18313.jpg

And Heroes Charge

You might've seen their advertisements.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
I wrote a more in depth analysis of this case a while back. The tldr is that there is two things under debate. One, did Eul make his version public domain or not. Two, are a sizable number of Dota Heroes public domain, and which ones?

Valve has proper ownership over everything created from the Guinsoo days and beyond, and all the art assists of Dota 2. But they may not have ownership over Eul's stuff (Which they bought), and some of the heroes made between Eul and Guinsoo.

uCool is in violation of Valve's and Blizzard's copyrights no matter what, but they are trying to minimize what they would have to pay out.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I wrote a more in depth analysis of this case a while back. The tldr is that there is two things under debate. One, did Eul make his version public domain or not. Two, are a sizable number of Dota Heroes public domain, and which ones?

Valve has proper ownership over everything created from the Guinsoo days and beyond, and all the art assists of Dota 2. But they may not have ownership over Eul's stuff (Which they bought), and some of the heroes made between Eul and Guinsoo.

uCool is in violation of Valve's and Blizzard's copyrights no matter what, but they are trying to minimize what they would have to pay out.
Link?
 
Wow, that looks like your typical chinese ripoff, and it looks like it flagrantly violates Blizzard's general intellectual monopolies in any case. uCool can't win, but they're trying to stem the bleeding.
 

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
I'm on my Phone at TI, so I don't think I would be able to find it now. It was a more in depth summery of that court document in the OP. Its a bit of a long read, but its good stuff.

Pages 20-21 talk about Eul potential public domaining dota, which is going to jury. Pages 18-19 talk about the ownership of heroes made in versions not by Eul/Guinsoo/Icefrog. The part about heroes means that Valve may not have the legal right to protect them, but you would individually challenge each character (Which if you didn't make the character, likely isn't worth the legal costs)
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
If they do indeed go through the game with a fine toothed comb, Lina "The Slayer" would be one of the obvious examples of non-ownership by Valve. Perhaps it falls under derivative work or satire?

I don't know what Lina is called in DotA Legend/Heroes Charge, though.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
Its "publicness" is under question now as an unintended side effect of this suit.
 
Its "publicness" is under question now as an unintended side effect of this suit.

Talking about the justice of the situation, not what our copyright system actually eventually spits out. Any copyright regime that makes a game developed by hundreds of amateurs over the course of a decade with many, many competing versions pinging off of each other, stealing ideas, and evolving in concert, not a part of the public domain is one that has been entirely captured by the media producers it is supposed to regulate.

Anyway, the best part of that court document for me was that the Warcraft III EULA didn't give Blizzard the rights to all the IP made in their mod tools - but it DID prevent people from selling things created using those tools. Which would have been incredibly amusing - Blizzard being prevented from buying the IP produced using their own tools because of their own draconian EULA, quite an own-goal.

Unfortunately, apparently the Chinese developers did not advance this argument, and since it wasn't advanced at summary judgement, they've waived it. Apparently the court even asked for clarification hoping to expand on this point and got bupkis. Very unfortunate.
 

Hylian7

Member
If they do indeed go through the game with a fine toothed comb, Lina "The Slayer" would be one of the obvious examples of non-ownership by Valve. Perhaps it falls under derivative work or satire?

I don't know what Lina is called in DotA Legend/Heroes Charge, though.
I don't think she is actually referred to as "The Slayer" anywhere in the Dota 2 or supplementing lore. She's just "Lina".

I'm honestly surprised Brewmaster hasn't had any lawsuit over him. He's not a panda anymore, but most of his kit is lifted directly from the Pandaren Brewmaster unit from WC3. If I remember correctly the WC3 one had Breathe Fire instead of Thunder Clap.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
I went to check if they nixxed that but nope, still "the Slayer".

12dYiXK.png
 
Talking about the justice of the situation, not what our copyright system actually eventually spits out. Any copyright regime that makes a game developed by hundreds of amateurs over the course of a decade with many, many competing versions pinging off of each other, stealing ideas, and evolving in concert, not a part of the public domain is one that has been entirely captured by the media producers it is supposed to regulate.

The copyright regime was also created from a tradition of amateurs turning around and selling their creations for their own profit. In other media altogether, the fight for "justice" has always been over the artist deserving to be paid something rather than nothing.

If everyone could take Dota without paying a cent in this case, there would be injustice in other cases where media companies have actually taken the works of amateurs without paying a cent.

Hell, if that were the case with Dota and Valve that would probably be exactly how the Dota story would be spun.
 

Haly

One day I realized that sadness is just another word for not enough coffee.
It will probably be changed at the end of this suit. I can't think of any other ones that immediately come to mind but Lina is el classico "rip off from something else".
 
It will probably be changed at the end of this suit. I can't think of any other ones that immediately come to mind but Lina is el classico "rip off from something else".

I imagine they only changed Windrunner etc because Blizzard is a more credible legal threat than Kanzaka Hajime (Slayers author) or Wizards of the Coast (Leshrac was from Magic)
 
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