Blizzard Disputing Valve’s Trademarking of DOTA

Meanwhile EA celebrates.

@G0rd0nFr33m4n said:

but Valve is smart, they will get people to play their game and like it somehow I guarantee it.

TF2 hats

@XlxLionhearTxlX: Why?

This just in; Valve changes their game's name to Iron Brigade.

Come on. Everybody who knows about DOTA knows Valve's being a major dick here.

When Valve revealed the project, anybody's gut reaction must have been... 'What the... this is so wrong... it's going to be AWESOME!'

I'm kinda surprised the community outcry wasn't louder, respectively there wasn't a community outcry at all. Usually people hate dick moves. I know I do.

@Binarynova said:

When you install Warcraft III, you agree to Blizzard’s EULA (End User License Agreement), which states all material created with the game’s tools, including the editor that helped birth DOTA, is Blizzard's property.

Wait wait wait wait! Modders willingly signed a license agreement that explicitly says that all material created with the game's tools are Blizzard's property? All material? Every single map. Every mod? That was in the EULA? I thought EULAs were just now getting ridiculous.

I was all ready to jump in here and tell Blizzard to take the DotA name, a name that they didn't come up with, that the community coined, and shove it. But ha! If that's what the EULA said, then sounds like the creators of Defense of the Ancients and by extension Valve are out of luck (and anyone else who made a Warcraft III mod).

Eh ok.... let's confuse Blizzard using a legal construct to prevent Valve from monopolizing the DOTA brand with Blizzard wanting to own everything modmakers ever made.

My understanding is that a EULA would prevent the trademarking of actual content and not the names of that content. This is like saying that any game with "tower defense" or "hero" in the title needs to change its branding, which would be just absurd. The term DOTA was never trademarked by blizzard so they have no legal claim to it anyway in my opinion. If they do, does that mean they have the exclusive rights to the words used in every title of any custom game played in WC3?

Maybe Valve will just give up on the whole dota thing and work on half-life 3 instead of a game we have all played a million times already. Or better yet make a real RTS.

Blizzard is pulling a dick move.

As someone who played over 300 hours of the Dota 2 beta I can tell you that Valve gives so much respect to the original mod that you can't help but be on their side.

Nice to see Valve have built up so much goodwill that people will defend them for the indefensible. How can Valve possibly justify filing the trademark? They probably would have enjoyed a relatively clean getaway with the already slippery move of releasing the game in the first place, had they not filed. Here's hoping they're stopped.

How can anyone be against Valve? C'mon, they are adorable.

Praise be to Gaben. My faith is strong.

I first was against Valve for doing this. When DOTA2 was announced it was a big "wtf?" for me.

But this changes everything:

"Valve is pushing forward with DOTA 2, having acquired one of the principal creative minds behind the original DOTA, Abdul “IceFrog” Ismail, back in 2010."

So yeah, Blizzard can go and fuck themselves, because THEY didn't create DOTA, THIS guy did.

Kind of a jerk move to wait this long... but I guess it's justified?

Basshunter has more claim to the name Dota than Blizzard do, given he actually made something under that alias. That said, I can see where Blizz are coming from, this trademark would prevent anyone else even using the term, for a profit or not.

oh shit valve! Now that this is precedent, Id Software is going to come after you because Team Fortress was originally a quake mod, therefore it is expressly an Id Software product!

@gringbot said:

I first was against Valve for doing this. When DOTA2 was announced it was a big "wtf?" for me.

But this changes everything:

"Valve is pushing forward with DOTA 2, having acquired one of the principal creative minds behind the original DOTA, Abdul “IceFrog” Ismail, back in 2010."

So yeah, Blizzard can go and fuck themselves, because THEY didn't create DOTA, THIS guy did.

That guy didn't either. That guy was ONE OF the creators. The other two creators aren't involved at all, and at least one of them also opposes Valve doing this. What do you say to that then? If only 1/3rd of the creators are behind this and the other 2/3rds either oppose or have no comment, what do think should happen then? Beyond the fact that one of the creators that is helping make Dota 2 may not even give a damn about if Valve trademarks the term Dota or not?

@RedRavN said:

My understanding is that a EULA would prevent the trademarking of actual content and not the names of that content. This is like saying that any game with "tower defense" or "hero" in the title needs to change its branding, which would be just absurd. The term DOTA was never trademarked by blizzard so they have no legal claim to it anyway in my opinion. If they do, does that mean they have the exclusive rights to the words used in every title of any custom game played in WC3?

Maybe Valve will just give up on the whole dota thing and work on half-life 3 instead of a game we have all played a million times already. Or better yet make a real RTS.

This isn't like that at all. Because no one else out there is trying to trademark "Tower defense." Games might use the term or the phrase "tower defense" but they're not actively trying to trademark it so that no one else can use it and that anyone else that does want to use it has to pay them for it. That's what Valve is doing. Blizzard is saying that Valve shouldn't be able to trademark Dota because it's a term that has become well associated with at least one of their products and that they believe DotA should be more a term that belongs to the community than it should be a name to be trademarked.

@jozzy said:

@Binarynova said:

When you install Warcraft III, you agree to Blizzard’s EULA (End User License Agreement), which states all material created with the game’s tools, including the editor that helped birth DOTA, is Blizzard's property.

Wait wait wait wait! Modders willingly signed a license agreement that explicitly says that all material created with the game's tools are Blizzard's property? All material? Every single map. Every mod? That was in the EULA? I thought EULAs were just now getting ridiculous.

I was all ready to jump in here and tell Blizzard to take the DotA name, a name that they didn't come up with, that the community coined, and shove it. But ha! If that's what the EULA said, then sounds like the creators of Defense of the Ancients and by extension Valve are out of luck (and anyone else who made a Warcraft III mod).

Eh ok.... let's confuse Blizzard using a legal construct to prevent Valve from monopolizing the DOTA brand with Blizzard wanting to own everything modmakers ever made.

There's one problem with this: Blizzard put a trademark for Dota Allstars in about 3 days after Valve put down a trademark for Dota. So you're completely wrong about Blizzard preventing monopolization, but rather just doing it themselves.

@PropaneJoe said:

Nice to see Valve have built up so much goodwill that people will defend them for the indefensible. How can Valve possibly justify filing the trademark? They probably would have enjoyed a relatively clean getaway with the already slippery move of releasing the game in the first place, had they not filed. Here's hoping they're stopped.

The name doesn't belong to anyone, I am pretty sure that even with the EULA, they have no claim to the term "DOTA". Valve is making a game called Dota 2, and they have the one guy who ACTUALLY has any real claim to it working on it.

Also, I could be wrong, but I think that EULA for Warcraft III came up pretty far out after DOTA was a thing. If you'll recall, it was kind of a big deal when the same thing was put into the SC2 EULA. Valve is making a game called Dota 2, their not going to just let that name exist floating out there for the rest of the world to use. The fact that Blizzard is claiming the NAME and not anything else is what makes this a little silly from Blizzard. Their just bitching that they don't get to keep DOTA. There's nothing wrong with Valve making a new Dota. There is nothing wrong with them calling it Dota 2. Because they have the guy who is essentially responsible for Dota as it is now. He took over. Now he works for Valve and is making Dota 2. On top of that, Dota 2 is being made in a way that embraces the thing that made Dota so could originally: the community is a part of the action.

I'd like to know if the EULA stated that at the time of the Mod's initial creation, and furthermore if Dota was made using the stock one of the community enhanced version, and if that would change things.

Valve, regardless if they are right or wrong, made a pretty stupid decision.  There was no reason they had to call it DOTA and in doing so they had to have known this was going to take a stick and poke at the beast that is Blizzard.  So by picking that name, regardless of how it turns out. You are going to be spending money on lawyers, pulling a Trenched and/or settling out of court by paying off blizzard.
 
It's not surprising that nobody read blizzards EULA.  I can't think of any current examples where you can make maps in game and use them for profit and DOTA maps are 100% from warcraft 3. ( Back when DOTA was actually fun and not a cesspool smug community. )  This same thing happend when Notch decided to name that unreleased game "Scrolls"...it's close enough to Elder Scrolls and that's all that matters to start getting lawyers invloved.  
 
I actually don't care what happens to the DOTA name because I don't play any version of it.  I hope Valve loses out for making a dumb business decision though.

This smells bad from all angles. As far as I can tell Blizzard has a tangential claim to the DOTA name and Valve has no claim to it at all, but is still trying to trademark it for some reason.

As far as I know Icefrog didnt create DotA, he was part of a team. Guinsoo did most of the stuff early on, but when he and pendragon(?) stopped working on dota is when it really became what it is today. A balanced E-sports-game, and that is all thanks to IceFrog.

@JackG100 said:

As far as I know Icefrog didnt create DotA, he was part of a team. Guinsoo did most of the stuff early on, but when he and pendragon(?) stopped working on dota is when it really became what it is today. A balanced E-sports-game, and that is all thanks to IceFrog.

Quick DotA history:

Eul was the first creator of DotA. It all originated as a StarCraft: Broodwar custom map and when WC3: Frozen Throne came out he remade the map and recreated the 5v5 hero based game. He then passed that on to Guinsoo who continued to add new heros / items / concepts to the game. Pendragon didn't actually design anything in DotA. He ran a website for the DotA community, though the DotA community is generally salty toward him because when he started working on LoL he shut down the DotA site completely instead of handing it off to someone else.

Guinsoo worked on DotA for ~3 years and then handed the reigns over to Icefrog. Icefrog is by far the most beloved designer when it comes to DotA fans. He's currently (and continues to) run DotA which makes his time working on it ~8 years now. Before Icefrog DotA was incredibly imbalanced and he is given credit for making it the competitive e-sport it is today. He STILL continues to update the WCIII mod today even though he is working on DotA 2.

Ah, good ole' Patrick. Actually reporting news and not spamming the forums with crap that isn't relative or a flat-out lie.

@FateOfNever:

Well, if one of the guys doesn't care, and the other is opposed then that's still 0% of Blizzards original creative input. Blizzard is just saying "it was created by our community, therefore we own it".

@triviaman09 said:

This smells bad from all angles. As far as I can tell Blizzard has a tangential claim to the DOTA name and Valve has no claim to it at all, but is still trying to trademark it for some reason.

This.

@gringbot said:

@FateOfNever:

Well, if one of the guys doesn't care, and the other is opposed then that's still 0% of Blizzards original creative input. Blizzard is just saying "it was created by our community, therefore we own it".

No, what Blizzard is saying is that "it was created by our community and it should stay belonging to our community and Valve shouldn't be able to trademark the name or term of Dota as a result because it belongs to our community." Valve didn't have any original creative input into the creation of the original Dota either, but they're trying to lay claim to the term all the same. Just because they've made a MOBA game does not entitle them to trademark the term Dota and to deny everyone else the use of that term.

i thought riot was trying to dispute this as well. maybe they just said some negative things about valve's decision to use the dota name in the press.

This is a shit show on both sites. It's amazing that two sides of a dispute can both be equally wrong. On one side Blizzard arguing that the EULA grants ownership of all properties, which evil, on the other side Value trying to copyright a fan made property that they have no legitimate right to, which is insidious.

It's sad to see two companies so beloved by their fans get into a mud fight like this.

I'm going to trademark 'Psychonauts 2', hire someone who was on the team that made the first and try to rob millions of people by releasing a game that they think is related to the first.

Seriously how can anyone side with Valve on this one. Super d**k move.

Blizzard should release a game called Counterstrike 2

@STEVEOO6 said:

I'm going to trademark 'Psychonauts 2', hire someone who was on the team that made the first and try to rob millions of people by releasing a game that they think is related to the first.

Seriously how can anyone side with Valve on this one. Super d**k move.

Blizzard should release a game called Counterstrike 2

That is a terrible analogy since Blizzard never created Dota, they just created the tools that enabled its creation and they didn't trademark the name "Dota." I do agree that Valve should not be trying to trademark Dota however.

@TennisCaptions:

Valve is trying to trademark "Dota."

Blizzard is attempting to stop that from happening saying that "Dota" belongs to the community and therefore free for everyone. Blizzard is not attempting to own Dota, but keep it free.

@gringbot: with blizzards assets.

But yea, I agree with you. They got the creative mind behind the first DOTA, so it isn't like they just trademarked it to use the name. If anything, shame on blizzard for being so slow and not hiring the guy first.

@Tangerines:

@TennisCaptions:

Valve is trying to trademark "Dota."

Blizzard is attempting to stop that from happening saying that "Dota" belongs to the community and therefore free for everyone. Blizzard is not attempting to own Dota, but keep it free.

This

This sounds a little greedy of Blizzard. By bringing this up now and having it last for a whole year (past the time Valve plans to release DOTA2), it is almost forcing Valve to settle in order to release it on time. I don't think Blizzard has any real hope of winning, but they will still coming out getting money with essentially zero risk. Whole thing sounds like a way to make a quick buck for nothing.

@STEVEOO6 said:

@Tangerines:

@TennisCaptions:

Valve is trying to trademark "Dota."

Blizzard is attempting to stop that from happening saying that "Dota" belongs to the community and therefore free for everyone. Blizzard is not attempting to own Dota, but keep it free.

This

Blizzard is trying to stop Valve by claiming that they and the Blizzard fan community have the right to it. How is that any different from a trademark if the name DOTA cannot be associated with anything other than a Blizzard product?

@STEVEOO6: Thanks for proving my point?

Its the same deal with Counterstrike. It was once a Half life mod. Now Valve owns it. Same goes with DOTA. Valve were smart enough to pick up the principle creator, Blizzard were too busy whoring WoW.

@potatomash3r said:

@STEVEOO6 said:

@Tangerines:

@TennisCaptions:

Valve is trying to trademark "Dota."

Blizzard is attempting to stop that from happening saying that "Dota" belongs to the community and therefore free for everyone. Blizzard is not attempting to own Dota, but keep it free.

This

Blizzard is trying to stop Valve by claiming that they and the Blizzard fan community have the right to it. How is that any different from a trademark if the name DOTA cannot be associated with anything other than a Blizzard product?

I could be wrong but I don't believe that Blizzard is trying to prevent Valve from using the Dota name, just trying to prevent them from monopolizing the brand.

@potatomash3r said:

@STEVEOO6 said:

@Tangerines:

@TennisCaptions:

Valve is trying to trademark "Dota."

Blizzard is attempting to stop that from happening saying that "Dota" belongs to the community and therefore free for everyone. Blizzard is not attempting to own Dota, but keep it free.

This

Blizzard is trying to stop Valve by claiming that they and the Blizzard fan community have the right to it. How is that any different from a trademark if the name DOTA cannot be associated with anything other than a Blizzard product?

Because Blizzard wants to keep the name free and prevent Valve from owning and profiting and charging for use of the name. The thing is that Blizzard is not charging for use of the name Dota which may or may not be the case for Valve.

this was bound to happen, it's just silly how both of them are fighting for this.

@Umberr said:

@JackG100 said:

As far as I know Icefrog didnt create DotA, he was part of a team. Guinsoo did most of the stuff early on, but when he and pendragon(?) stopped working on dota is when it really became what it is today. A balanced E-sports-game, and that is all thanks to IceFrog.

Quick DotA history:

Eul was the first creator of DotA. It all originated as a StarCraft: Broodwar custom map and when WC3: Frozen Throne came out he remade the map and recreated the 5v5 hero based game. He then passed that on to Guinsoo who continued to add new heros / items / concepts to the game. Pendragon didn't actually design anything in DotA. He ran a website for the DotA community, though the DotA community is generally salty toward him because when he started working on LoL he shut down the DotA site completely instead of handing it off to someone else.

Guinsoo worked on DotA for ~3 years and then handed the reigns over to Icefrog. Icefrog is by far the most beloved designer when it comes to DotA fans. He's currently (and continues to) run DotA which makes his time working on it ~8 years now. Before Icefrog DotA was incredibly imbalanced and he is given credit for making it the competitive e-sport it is today. He STILL continues to update the WCIII mod today even though he is working on DotA 2.

Eul, the original developer and first to use the "Dota" name also works at Valve. I don't know why everyone who has a stake in vilifying Icefrog as taking credit for the mod overlooks this.

IIRC and I could be wrong, Valve is attempting to trademark the word "DOTA" and not the actual acronym for "Defense of the Ancients", which Blizzard might have had some further claim to or would've added weight to their complaint (since it refers to a common Azerothian creature and WC3 Night-elf structure) if used.

Valva shouldn't have called it Dota 2...

They could have gone with anything else.

I can't wait to hear them take testimony from a dude who refers to himself as "Icefrog"

While I'll accept that Blizzard is in the gray in terms of legal rights to the name since they admittedly had the opportunity to trademark it themselves but didn't, ethically speaking, fuck Valve and especially Icefrog for making it come to this in the first place.

Dota wasn't even really a mod of WC3, it'd be more accurate to classify it as a custom map. As in entirely built with the editor that Blizzard provided free of charge, and playable straight off Blizzard's code (so no additional install of assets/custom code like you would see in a conventional mod) because Blizzard meant for WC3 to be used as a platform by the community to create these kinds of offshoot rts experiences in the first place. Hell, Dota wasn't even the first MOBA map if I recall correctly, it was a smaller map called Aeon of Strife. Put it this way, if someone created a hit offshoot from the Little Big Planet editor that spun off into a full game deal, would it be okay for that person to now use Sackboy's name and likeness to build the new game around, because that is exactly what Icefrog is doing. That Valve would put their reputation behind such a blatant dick move is disappointing imo.

Plus, it's not like Blizzard has a history of being petty about this sort of thing. The WC3 editor can be credited for spawning both the MOBA and tower defense genres (along with Magicka, which draws off a map called Spellcraft), and Blizzard has never made a big fuss of any of these games. Thing is at least these guys had the decency to try to create their own brand/goodwill instead of just leeching off Blizzard and throwing the fucking Blademaster in there and calling it a day.

Valve should just pony up and pay for what they know they took, but the sad and more likely conclusion will be that Blizzard gets labeled as "naive" by the law for not protecting what they allowed their community to share for free out of goodwill, and this whole episode will just serve as a hard lesson learned about how low some would go for a buck.

@STEVEOO6 said:

@Tangerines:

@TennisCaptions:

Valve is trying to trademark "Dota."

Blizzard is attempting to stop that from happening saying that "Dota" belongs to the community and therefore free for everyone. Blizzard is not attempting to own Dota, but keep it free.

This

Oh please. Don't believe for a second Blizzard is being remotely altruistic here. They profited from the interest generated in their game by this fan mod for years and did nothing for the mod creator. Now that Valve actually had the foresight to take him in to remake the game, Blizzard wants to cry fowl because someone stole their free content generator. The whole "well you made it with our stuff so its ours" thing is flimsy as hell to begin with and honestly it's obnoxious it's allowed to begin with (imagine if LEGO claimed the rights to all works of art made with their blocks...), and ultimately I'm hoping the court has their senses about them and throws this out considering the person who created the name and the game itself has nothing to do with Blizzard as a company.

Messy situation. I can see it argued that since Valve is using the name of a popular Warcraft mod that Valve is profiting off of Blizzard when the mod couldn't (and wasn't) sold in the first place.

@Crono:

You got me there, I laughed at that one.

Would Mr. Icefrog please take the stand...

I hope this makes Valve change the name to something other than DOTA 2 and just be done with it. I realize, legally, they probably have plenty of right to proclaim something as a sequel to what was essentially a crowd-sourced idea, but the whole thing feels slimy and very un-valve, to me. When your only path to drawing people in is name recognition for a mod, it makes me doubt the quality of your product. League of Legends and all the other DOTA style games managed to do quite well without the name, so what's Valve's deal? Blizzard DOTA isn't much better, but considering DOTA's origins, it at least makes sense for them to release a DOTA game. Especially one birthed originally as a mod for SC 2.

@Crono said:

I can't wait to hear them take testimony from a dude who refers to himself as "Icefrog"

Only if he wears the appropriate costume to the stand.

Patrick, why did you use an old screenshot of dota 2 with a watermark, when giantbomb itself has more uptodate and watermark free screen shots you could have used?
 
Other then that, good article.

Blizzard does not possess the name DotA. They never actually paid the modders anything to acquire that name. Since those modders are now working for Vavle, well, it's their loss.

Baoby Kotick should stop envying other children's toys.