An open letter to the CoHmmunity about rebroadcasting

As someone who in the grand scheme of things is very new and still a complete novice in the COH community I'd like to have an input.

Firstly, when I first joined 3 of the most welcoming people where Stormless, Hans and Tenschi and this is gut wrenching to 2 of these people at logger heads as I love you all.

Onto the main part of this, I can see both sides of the coin here, the long story short thing is, Hans, what I've seen people in the SC2 community do for GSL (The Korean tournament) is do an IRL stream where they'll be watching it an input their thoughts/cast over the top BUT not restream it as the viewers can still have that channel open to watch it and your stream open to listen to your input and have your chat. That way, you both get viewers from it, you're not rebroadcasting it (as per TOS of Twitch)

I hope you guys can come to a resolution to all this and move forward.

Firstly, get over yourself.

Secondly, it was not YOUR place to ask your viewers if you should cast the games. It was not your event. It's not your stream or your content. Why you think you had the right to ask your viewers this is beyond me. Even if you did want to, you should have the manners to ask.



I really couldn't care less if Tenshi has validated your lack of ethics.

There were multiple streams organised by Currahee and the OFFICAL EVENT ORGANISERS already. There was no requirement for you assist those streams or to try and divert viewership.

I think you take your own quote - "If your content is good enough, people will watch you". Maybe you should make your own content rather than leeching off of the tournament.

I think if you ask Tenshi about SC2 you will know that SC2 etiquette is that you do not rebroadcast content without permission. You would be shut down so hard for it.

Get over myself? Seriously please. I think it is you that needs to get off your high horse and realise that you do not have dictatorship rights over who and who can't cast tournament matches. All I say is let the viewers decided. Surely that is a fair solution.

Far from leeching, if anything I am making the tournament better with my insights. I am not being egotistical about this it is just fact. The proof is in the chat. Just read it back if you don't believe me.

You can do that without blatantly ripping the stream

Look the re-stream thing was a mistake. I thought nobody would care because all one had to do was bring up the spectate mode and watch it that way. I just got lazy and decided to watch the stream instead because I already had it up. Now I see it was a bad move and I apologise for that.

Everybody calm down for a second, I think we need to have a civil discussion, without pointing fingers and throwing mud at each other here. I think the general post is good, but the specifics would better be discussed in private (with the general post afterwards)

It was just a prank bro relax

Far from leeching, if anything I am making the tournament better with my insights. I am not being egotistical about this it is just fact. The proof is in the chat. Just read it back if you don't believe me.

I think what would have been acceptable if you wanted to add your input without asking, is to download the replay and make a YouTube video of it.

You wouldn't have caused the problems I initially stated

• Tournament Organisers feel cheated and less willing to run events
  
• We are denied viewership and statistics that go towards getting sponsors for events
  
• We are denied donations and contributions to prize pools on the official channels
  
• Casters are left upset that their broadcast has been undermined
  
  

Where do you think it is acceptable for you to come in and start slating valuable members of the community telling them that they don't have a right to broadcast their own event exclusively because 'YOU THINK' you can do it better.

You had no right to cast those matches, especially as you are a player in the event and also, myself, Currahee and AE are supposed to be your friends. Where exactly is your moral explanation for this Hans?




If you want to do something like this, then download the replay and do a cast of it after the event. That is what most people would do so as to have their input and not cross paths with their friends and tournament organisers.

By doing this live you disrupted the event and earned money off of other's hard work.

Show me a law where it tells me I can't cast tournament matches then. Is there one? No there is not. You guys are doing this as a hobby and not a job. There is a big difference here. You claim to be my friend and here you are trying to restrict me to what I can and can't do. Have any of you ever once asked me to cast a tournament on my channel? Maybe take it in turns perhaps? Well no of course not because you want to reap the benefits on your channels as you always do. I'm always having to step aside for others, please tell me HOW ON EARTH IS THAT FAIR.

I even asked Tenshi (a professional caster) on his opinion on all this and he said the more people watching on different channels is actually better for the tournament on a whole. So what your saying about damaging the community is complete bull shit.

I didn't realize when asked about this topic that he directly re-streamed over Matt's stream. Thought it was through the in-game Observer interface.

Re-streaming content directly without permission is very much frowned upon within the SC community.

Hope you guys can sort this out and move on soon anyway.

Lol Hans are you seriously doubling down? This is pretty indefensible even if you weren't restreaming their broadcast, since they went through the trouble to set up the event. I can't just go to a sporting event and restream the match live on youtube, they own not only the the official broadcast but the actual rights to broadcast the game. For future reference you guys should look in to legal side of this to see what is necessary to trademark the entire event (if you don't already), broadcast and all.

Could someone lock this? Might be better discussed privately with a resolution posted as an update?

Always having to step aside for others, please tell me HOW ON EARTH IS THAT FAIR.

I mentioned to you already that you do not have to 'step aside'. We are politely asking that you don't rebroadcast our content live and disrupt a live event.

You can cast your own content and if you are good enough, people will watch you

When "I didn't do anything illegal" is your main line of defense...

I mentioned to you already that you do not have to 'step aside'. We are politely asking that you don't rebroadcast our content live and disrupt a live event.

You can cast your own content and if you are good enough, people will watch you

I am not disrupting a live event why can't you see that. I am helping make the event bigger and better. The more streamers casting tournament matches the better.

I am not disrupting a live event why can't you see that. I am helping make the event bigger and better. The more streamers casting tournament matches the better.

All you did was divert viewers from an official stream. Please do not try to claim you have helped anyone

Nice little witch hunt we have here I see.

You've done something incredibly wrong within the context of our little community of 1,000 or so people and gotten called out on it. From what I can see its been done in a public way so people can understand the etiquette and know what to do going forward.

First of let me just state I do not want to cause anyone grief for streaming tournament matches. I asked my viewers if they would like me to stream the matches and they said yes because they preferred my game insight.

They should never have even been asked that question, of course your viewers are going to say that... the majority of them are your fans they will agree with most of what you say, even if it's not the right thing to do as in this case.

I even asked Tenshi (a professional caster) on his opinion on all this and he said the more people watching on different channels is actually better for the tournament on a whole. So what your saying about damaging the community is complete bull shit.

Well that's funny, because Tenshi told me and Dan the story once (iirc) of when he helped run a smaller esports outlet for SC2 and someone used to re-stream their streams, and it lead to a drama and was incredibly BM. Perhaps another case of people telling you what you want to hear? Or perhaps he meant in the context of SC2's huge community not in our community of 800 people.

Secondly the only reason I did I rebroadcast of A_E's channel was because it saved me time jumping into the replay manually and speeding through the game. I admit this was wrong and I will not do it again. Next time I'll just use the spectate mode, at-least that way viewers won't miss important moments of a match.

Firstly the disrespect you showed in rebroadcasting and overdubbing a fellow streamer and their cast was quite significant, but at least you acknowledge that that was wrong.

But nah next time you will ask whichever tournament organiser's permission, and discuss with them which games you can cast if they want you to cast. Otherwise you'll probably end up burning bridges with said organiser(s), and not being afforded the opportunities you would like in the future.

I am pretty sure that for any other game like SC2 if a tourney match was available to watch and cast having been available in the game's own spectate mode I am sure plenty of people would jump at the opportunity. I am absolutely sick and tired of having to step aside and be the good guy for other people because you're worried about me stealing viewership. Now listen and listen good all of you, if you're content is good people will watch it. End of story. So if I am having more viewers then you there's a bloody good reason for it.

Well for one you didn't get more viewers, you maintained the same viewership you had before, me and Siddolio had 500 viewers at our peak, but we could have had more, had you not been re-streaming our fucking stream.

This is not about you having more viewers, this is about you being rude, arrogant, and going against community conventions because you think you can and because you don't have a traditional job you think it's ok. edit: after cooling off, I think this phrasing is overly personal, apologies.

At the end of the day this is my job and I have to make a living out of it, you can't spite me for trying to cast tournament matches

No one was gonna spite anything until you made the speech about how you DNGAF what people thought, and did it anyway. A nice courteous PM could to a friend or two could have meant you could cast on your channel in an organised fashion.

Well we work all day in traditional jobs, then spend our free time organising and casting tournaments, we're not prepared for you to come and swing by and snap up the good shit we've created. Please don't, or discuss and organise it first.

All you did was divert viewers from an official stream. Please do not try to claim you have helped anyone

Diverting viewers is what you want to believe. Instead I did the exact opposite and directed viewers to the other casters channels as other viewing options. Just watch the VOD back if you don't believe me.

"We do not tolerate, for example: rebroadcasting other Twitch broadcasters' content" - from Twitch/legal

Just a small legal background for you guys

Let's move this on from Hans, and make this a general discussion. After a cooling off period.

Apologies if this concentrated on you specifically Hans but you've hit a hornet's nest and may have hurt three of your friends' egos in one stroke, please let's take the discussion to PMs. Or we can continue this civilly tomorrow as a wider debate.

The whole idea of this post wasn't about any witch hunts, it was to make all of our feelings and expectations clear on the etiquette and manners involved with streaming tourney content etc.

We did want this to be a public notice though, as it's a very interesting debate to have. We'll lock this until 12pm BST tomorrow, so we can debate with cool heads. (also out of respect to the poor mods).