Twitch Stream Sparks League of Legends E-Sport Controversy

Riot's president, Marc Merrill, says it "reeks of harassment and bullying."

Spectate Faker, a Twitch stream that uses OP.GG to broadcast the matches of League of Legends pro player Lee "Faker" Sang-Hyeok. The concept seems simple to everyone except Azubu which sent a DMCA notice to the Twitch stream's owner, "StarLordLucian." Azubu doesn't own the content being streamed by Spectate Faker. While they have exclusive rights to broadcast Faker's streams, Spectate Faker isn't a direct re-stream of that perspective—rather, it's the view from a sanctioned third-party spectator. That footage is owned by Riot.

Riot's own terms of service claim the following:

"We’ll start with our golden rule – you can use League of Legends IP as the basis for a fan project that you’re giving away for free or that’s only generating ad revenue ... as long as you comply with the guidelines outlined below for using our IP. As a matter of fact, as long as you comply with our Guidelines, we think it’s great if you create awesome, free and original content for League of Legends fans."

"StarLordLucian" claims that his steams is within these guidlines. He also describes Azubu's DMCA takedown request as "illegal," and claims the only ones with the the ability to end the stream are Riot themselves.

So far Riot has not issued a takedown request.