PGL on a mission to take down Dota 2 players’ favorite content creators

Tournament organizer PGL handed out multiple copyright strikes to beloved Dota 2 content creators today, triggering channel terminations for some. At the time of writing, NoobFromUA and Dota Digest are the two most well-known content creators affected by the strikes.

The news burst into the Dota 2 world after NoobFromUA posted on X (formerly Twitter) announcing that his channel, with over one million subscribers, would be terminated on March 4 due to PGL’s serial copyright strikes.

PGL hitting NoobFromUA without warning rubbed the Dota 2 community the wrong way, and many questioned how legit these claims are. In the Dota 2 content creation world, taking footage from Dota TV is fair game. Tournament organizers can’t own the gameplay footage, but it’s still forbidden to pull any content from official tournament streams. This allows content creators to create highlight videos from in-game replays that, on paper, belong to Valve.

Since PGL doesn’t own the actual gameplay footage, most of these copyright strikes look baseless. While many hope this was a mistake on PGL’s side and the claims were automated, other fans on Reddit think it could be a well-timed attack on some of Dota 2’s most beloved channels. It could just be a coincidence that Dota Digest and NoobFromUA were both one infringement away from termination and received copyright strikes at the same time, but PGL isn’t a stranger to controversy.

Most of these channels focused on uploading highlight videos of professional matches as soon as they were over. Considering how long Dota 2 matches can last, highlight videos allow many players with limited time to keep up with the pro scene.

Many of the affected channels have been around for between five and 10 years, and for some, the gig was their main source of income. To make matters worse, the tournament organizers also previously hired NoobFromUA to prepare official game highlights, so PGL’s declaration of war is even stranger.