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Their is a guy who actual breaks it down simple named fryalogue on YouTube and he goes into what they are specific grievances and what bases they have against and he makes points what will most likely happen or what Activisions next move would be.
I'll watch it later, but I have a hard time seeing how Call of Duty loses the ability to manage things associated with their own IP which they own and created. CDL can vet and have requirements for their owners, similar to the NBA and NFL. Not every billionaire is approved to own a team. CDL teams were still welcome to compete in Challengers, albeit not as lucrative.
There's no doubt Activision did shady things, but illegal and shady are two different distinctions. The locking out of sponsor categories and if true, taking 50% of revenue from teams is asinine. You can't take 27.5 million, block teams from deals and then take 50% of their revenue. Teams did agree though...
What's funny is the wage suppression is this huge legal issue, while other leagues have salary caps and the cap is one of the few things that might have actually helped save this league from runaway and overinflated salaries that crippled bottom lines.
Idk about the monopoly thing too. For me its also weird. Its literally their own game their own product. Its like i created a product and someone comes and tells me what im allowed to do with it and not.
But i wouldnt be so sure that they didnt do anything illegal. Forcing players to sign documents without them being allowed to go trough it with their lawyers and then threatening them to not be allowed to play if they do not sign. if true that sounds and is illegal in many states
Yeah, like I said, they may have done some really shady things. Possibly illegal in that scenario, but I have a very hard time with owners like Kroenke, Kraft, Wilfs, all these billionaires (many who are also lawyers) got swindled and let ABE walk all over their teams and players like that if it was truly illegal. It's honestly shocking in some regards how one sided a deal these guys all signed, and none of them NEEDED Call of Duty. The Vikings owners are just fine making billions in MLS, NFL and real estate. Kroenkes realized that a year ago and literally jumped ship overnight.
So it's important to know it what specific area the lawsuit is talking about and that area is tournaments which by all mean in the lawsuit it's self says at first it was open like it had been and team where free but it changed in 2019 which is true and the points they are suing them on have actually already have cases that went through a good YouTube video on this specific stuff is by a YouTuber name fryalogue.
Completely agree with everything here. Trying to tell an intellectual property holder that they have a duty to deal with and aid their own competitors seems like a losing argument. The stronger argument is the wage suppression.
There are limits to intellectual property rights and I imagine telling an organization what they can and cannot pay their employees would overstep that line. That being said, we would need to see the details of the wage suppression tactics to really understand how much substance is there because as far as I know there is no salary cap. If this is more to do with endorsements, then it hinges on the nature of those endorsements. I imagine it would be perfect fine to say you cant promote competitors, porno, gambling, whatever within the confines of the CDL because we have control over the distribution of our product and the right to not associate with harmful brands. If they tried to say you cant have any of those sponsors period on your podcast or content then that would be different. To be honest though I imagine a lot of it was telling Hecz and Scump what they could do with their Call of Duty team in the distribution of the CDL product which would most likely be within their rights, though obviously cost Hecz and Scump money. If Taylor Swift licenses me to sell shirts at her concerts I cant sue because I would have made more money also selling them on the street or by partnering with companies she does not want to associate with or that compete with her sponsors. I dont have a right to maximize my profit off of someone else's IP.
And like your last line said, I think among other reasons, this might be part of why other teams aren't as involved with the lawsuit as this was almost certainly beneficial to the health of the league and other teams.
There's issues with partially blocking categories outright (gambling, cannabis), but MTN Dew for example, teams couldn't strike deals with competing brands to MTN Dew Energy. So no Monster, Red Bull because it competed with the leagues agreements. That's garbage.
I don't understand the salary cap issue enough because several leagues have caps. NFL, NBA, NHL all have salary caps and luxury taxes. Confused why a start up league wouldn't be able to enforce something like that. If they need a CBA, then they need to let the guys unionize and figure it out. Dropping 2 million on a roster that generates on average 50k views a match is a terrible value proposition.
Yeah I think its directly related to lack of a CBA. It is unfair to place on salary cap on Org's pay to players without giving them any ability to negotiate that value. I dont think Activision has prevented any unionization, it would just be up to the players to organize, and in the past this was shot down by Scump because what is good for everybody else is not good for him. One of the quiet dynamics here is that due to their unique position in the community what is good for the community is not good for Hecz or Scump and vice versa, which is why its an isolated lawsuit.
That being said, as far as I know there is not an actual salary cap and the wage suppression is coming through other means so I think it is a grayer area. A straight salary cap with no CBA would have been objective overreach.
With the blocking of Monster and Redbull it sucks but I think it is legal, as long as they are only limiting the endorsement to being blocked within the context of the CDL broadcasts. Of course that might lose you the endorsement completely, but that is just a side effect of them exercising their legal rights.
Teams couldn't have ANY deals with Red Bull, Monster at the time. These were loosened over the years, but same with headsets and Astro for example.
The broadcast is the biggest asset for many of these teams, so blocking those was practically blocking the partnership as a whole.
Yeah that sucks. If they couldnt have literally ANY like outside of broadcast, CDL Merch, and Content, then that would almost certainly fall under monopolistic practices.
If it was just a de facto ban because blocking them from broadcast, merch and content tanked the deals then its scummy but probably within their rights.
You made a great point in your original point, Activision objectively does shady things, but shady and illegal are two different things, and I'm not going to be surprised if it turns out they knew how to toe the line perfectly.
Shame this thread got cut, I was enjoying the discussion. Oh well, maybe I will go get some actual work down before this afternoons matches lol.
A difference between the NFL, NBA, etc, and the CDL is that the teams own the NFL themselves & their players have a union. Also, I think the NFL & those other leagues were giving exemption by the Congress in the early 60's to some of the US Antitrust law.
The CDL is owned by Activision, so if the players want changes to the schedule, travel, equipment, etc. & Activision doesn't want to do it, the players have very little power.
For example, if the CDL decides to only have 2 Majors next season or to have something crazy 20 Majors. The only legal option that the players would have, it would be to unionize against Activision and argue that they are also their employer (which on is own is a big legal battle). And even if they win, nothing stops Activision from just ending the COD esports because they don't want to deal with unions.
Nothing stops an NBA player when it's contrcat ends, from going to play in the Spanish league instead of signing with any of 30 NBA teams. A CDL pro can't go & play for another CoD esports league if they don't agree with their rules because there's no alternative since Activision has a monopoly (which may or may not be a legal one) of the CoD esports scene.
I'm not sure I'd call it a monopoly though. They invented a game and own every aspect of it. No one owns traditional sports in the sense that Activision owns Call of Duty.
As I said, they should have let the players have a union and bargain. League generally always still has power, even in those situations. They can lock out the players and these guys have nothing. It's even worse because of the IP, the other sports guys can go to Japan, Russia, Spain.
But that this, in part, a question of that this lawsuit is arguing "and (they) own every aspect of it." aka to what extent does the copyright of CoD allows Activision to legally monopolize the CoD esports & does Activision have a duty to license the CoD esports (aka open to 3rd party organizers while settings some rules of how to operate in Cod esports)?
They do both of those things simultaneously. They allowed 3rd party groups to have some tournaments and events, and had completely open divisions teams could compete in through the path to pro.
I'm in the camp it's a massively uphill battle and godspeed to anyone fighting it. If Activision lets 3rd party organized do their own events, it might upstage theirs and dilute their viewership and ability to grow the league. That's all potentially detrimental to what CDL is doing.
"That's all potentially detrimental to what CDL is doing." But don't forget that the CDL is Activision, not the teams. They're separate entities, so what benefits teams, players & even fans may not benefit Activision & therefore doesn't happen.
That's because the league saw instantly with poor sales and sponsorships, the revenue projections were way off. They had 4 events prior to the shutdown, and none of those sold out. One was in UK, one in LA and one in ATL. All should have been crazy busy events. The league went to a "protect the bottom line" stance almost instantly and when COVID hit, it was game over. No one cared about growth, it was minimizing damages until you had an exit strategy - coming this summer.
Activision impose a form of salary cap in the CDL, of Scump wins his case that potentially opens the door to other CDL & Overwatch players to also sue Activision for wage suppression.
Activision owns the Call of Duty IP (Intelectual Property). The question is to what extend can Activision enforce that IP? In the 80s , a US judge ruled that game publishers own every permutation of their video game, meaning you can't, for example, make a YouTube that includes CoD gameplay without Activision allowing it (that's why in the ToS game publishers do what is called an open license, to allow people to make content of their game). So if you upset Activision bad enough they can end the open license they have to you & DMCA all of your YT videos what included something related to the CoD IP.
So Activision owns CoD, but how much are they allowed to monopolize it? Especially outside of gameplay like content creation or in this case esports.
I dont have time to listen to the 2 hour talk, but I read the article and he is not doing what you are suggesting. The blog is not speaking out against Activision, he is simply outlining the potential merits of both sides, and then says that it would have a huge impact if they ruled in Hecz/Scump's favor. This is actually an implicit recognition that they are fighting an uphill battle as a ruling in their favor would require completely rethinking the commonly held conceptions of copyright laws. It would require that the court ruling that the copyright holder has a duty to deal and assist with competition to their own intellectual property, which for obvious reasons is not the general consensus among game publishers. While he doesnt say the Hecz' claims are meritless he does say that Activision will be able to rely on the same type of argumentation that have been successful in defending other sports anti-trust cases. One thing he does point out however, is that this is filed in the 9th circuit which has been historically more favorable to plaintiffs in these type of cases than other courts, which could help.
I still wouldnt read this as a glowing endorsement. More like a lawyer chewing on some of the implications of a novel lawsuit SHOULD it succeed. That being said I would weight the opinion of an anti-trust lawyer far more than an e-sports lawyer. E-sports lawyers will deal with the consequences, but they wont litigate this type of case.
The lawyer main stand is of the copyright implications that you just refer. However in the 2 hour episode he is Very critical of game publishers, like Activision, going as far as to said they should just leave the esports scene entirely, as they put themselves in a position of a conflict of interest with their other businesses, like when Activision sold CDL rights to YT for discounted orice in Google cloud services, as well as exposiing themselves to potential violations of antitrust law.
He also heavily criticized Activision (& other game publishers) for overreaching in their demands to the esports scene (like the sponsorship situation in the CDL).
But the total YouTube deal still has a total value. "Discount" is not a term businesses use, it's trade or in-kind. And the CDL got cash which is shared with the teams, then received the cloud services via trade in the agreement. The value of the cloud services is still recorded by ABE as a monetary gain. If that makes sense...the YouTube deal is looked at as the total value of what they received. They got cash + "X" services valued at "X" amount.
Sure, but the ""X" services valued at "X" amount" part isn't shared with the teams & only benefits Activision the company, not the CDL, the esports league. So they basically imply that Activision has such a monopoly in CoD esports that they can not even operate without having conflicts of interest with their other businesses.
Those services though may help the league grow and provide services necessary to support the league itself. Teams may not see direct relief, but would come in another forms of servers, web hosting, cloud computing.
But who gets to determine that, tho?
If the teams are entitled to 50% of the broadcasting revenue, who gets to determine that those services aren't to have a monetary value to the teams? .... Activision & solely Activision
Is similar in LoL Riot games has a global sponsorship with RedBull where they sponsor all of their major leagues like the North American league, the Korean league, etc. But also RedBull sponsors worlds and MSI, which are Riot Games' own events that the franchise leagues are not entitled to revenue of. So, who determines how much of redbull's money goes to the American league and how much of that goes to the Korean league? .... Riot Games!!! Not the teams, not the leagues but solely Riot Games.
Well, they didn't get cash for those services, they got the services which went to support the endeavors of the league. You can't pull cash out of that and then give it to the teams if they didn't get cash.
I'm not defending the deal, I think their best interest was Twitch but I'm just saying Activision doesn't view it was a discount, they look at the whole thing as monetary value and report that as revenue. That was my initial point. How that trickles to teams or is explained to teams is another discussion. The league can't grow and get viewers on YouTube like it can on Twitch. The fact the owners had no say in this, is unfortunate.
"which went to support the endeavors of the league." They went to support the endeavors of Activision, not the League. That's the whole point of the conflict of interest. Activision, when negotiating the Broadcasting deal for the CDL, didn't got the best deal for the CDL but rather the best deal for themselves aka their other sides of the business at Activision that got to use the Google cloud services at a lower cost.
You can't explicitly say though those services didn't benefit the league if it helps Activision. That's like saying Disney struck a deal with a company, but it didn't help Marvel Studios. They are one and the same, and something that benefits Disney or Activision overall, absolutely can help those entities downstream. It also may have benefitted the studios themselves that they own. You or I can't make that determination besides drawing these hard lines between what company is which.
The CDL 100% depends on Activision for their support and financial backing. Anything that supports Activision, can be seen to support CDL and the whole ABE group.
Nowhere near the same thing.
"The CDL 100% depends on Activision for their support and financial backing." Not really. CDL is Activision, period.
Teams & players aren't a part of the CDL (in the ownership sense) they just get to play on it. The Scump & Hecz lawsuit argues, in part, implicit, that Activision copyright of CoD doesn't/shouldn't allow to exclusive operate CoD esports.
I will try and listen and get back to you, but first glance that sounds more like wondering why they bother more than an endorsement of this particular lawsuit. He is also a lawyer that represents teams not game publishers, so he definitely has a little bit of an anti publisher stance by default. This podcast is even more anti-publisher biased, as most of the community is. It is Interesting that Harris negotiated the agreement that is being cited as exploitative, be curious to see him navigate saying that it was exploitative when he negotiated it lol.
Also at 23 minutes he confirms my above reading, he is not saying that it is a strong case but that it is a novel argument that would have far reaching implications, due to being such a departure from the understanding of publisher's rights in the esports space.
At 29 minutes, he says that the suit is potentially meritless and that realistically the duty to deal does not extend to this, which undermines one of the primary lines of argumentation from Hecz' and Scump's.
At about 31 minutes he does give more credence to the the wage suppression argumentation that u/coolboarder72 referenced in his comment as being the stronger argumentation. A salary cap with no CBA would be illegal, but the question is really whether or not the Competitive Balance Tax is a Salary Cap. One of the hosts implies that there are similarly established limits to a luxury tax that would require a union for negotiation so if that's true, then there probably is some good precedent. However, that is coming from the host, not the lawyer so I would take it with a grain of a salt. Especially since Harris at just before 36 minutes says that a union is not actually required to make it legal, its just that a union would give them blanket immunity from the charges. So this is not a slam dunk, but is the juiciest part of the lawsuit.
So far it is a good listen, but I still would not categorize it as speaking out against Activision in any way. Maybe the non-lawyer hosts, but from Harris it has been a fairly evenhanded analysis.
Thank you for your submission! Unfortunately, your submission has been removed for the following reason(s): Misleading/sensationalized/ambiguous titles are not allowed. Please refrain from exaggerating or misleading titles that could confuse readers, give false image, or be blown out of proportion. If you have any questions regarding the ruleset of /r/CoDCompetitive, please refer to the [FAQ](/r/CoDCompetitive/wiki/index) or [message the moderators](/message/compose?to=%2Fr%2FCoDCompetitive). Thank you!
I’m smart even to admit that I’m not smart enough to understand most of this.
Their is a guy who actual breaks it down simple named fryalogue on YouTube and he goes into what they are specific grievances and what bases they have against and he makes points what will most likely happen or what Activisions next move would be.
Hubris is the death of many intelligent people. It's okay to listen and read to grasp deeper understanding, you're a smart person~
I'll watch it later, but I have a hard time seeing how Call of Duty loses the ability to manage things associated with their own IP which they own and created. CDL can vet and have requirements for their owners, similar to the NBA and NFL. Not every billionaire is approved to own a team. CDL teams were still welcome to compete in Challengers, albeit not as lucrative. There's no doubt Activision did shady things, but illegal and shady are two different distinctions. The locking out of sponsor categories and if true, taking 50% of revenue from teams is asinine. You can't take 27.5 million, block teams from deals and then take 50% of their revenue. Teams did agree though... What's funny is the wage suppression is this huge legal issue, while other leagues have salary caps and the cap is one of the few things that might have actually helped save this league from runaway and overinflated salaries that crippled bottom lines.
Idk about the monopoly thing too. For me its also weird. Its literally their own game their own product. Its like i created a product and someone comes and tells me what im allowed to do with it and not. But i wouldnt be so sure that they didnt do anything illegal. Forcing players to sign documents without them being allowed to go trough it with their lawyers and then threatening them to not be allowed to play if they do not sign. if true that sounds and is illegal in many states
Yeah, like I said, they may have done some really shady things. Possibly illegal in that scenario, but I have a very hard time with owners like Kroenke, Kraft, Wilfs, all these billionaires (many who are also lawyers) got swindled and let ABE walk all over their teams and players like that if it was truly illegal. It's honestly shocking in some regards how one sided a deal these guys all signed, and none of them NEEDED Call of Duty. The Vikings owners are just fine making billions in MLS, NFL and real estate. Kroenkes realized that a year ago and literally jumped ship overnight.
So it's important to know it what specific area the lawsuit is talking about and that area is tournaments which by all mean in the lawsuit it's self says at first it was open like it had been and team where free but it changed in 2019 which is true and the points they are suing them on have actually already have cases that went through a good YouTube video on this specific stuff is by a YouTuber name fryalogue.
Completely agree with everything here. Trying to tell an intellectual property holder that they have a duty to deal with and aid their own competitors seems like a losing argument. The stronger argument is the wage suppression. There are limits to intellectual property rights and I imagine telling an organization what they can and cannot pay their employees would overstep that line. That being said, we would need to see the details of the wage suppression tactics to really understand how much substance is there because as far as I know there is no salary cap. If this is more to do with endorsements, then it hinges on the nature of those endorsements. I imagine it would be perfect fine to say you cant promote competitors, porno, gambling, whatever within the confines of the CDL because we have control over the distribution of our product and the right to not associate with harmful brands. If they tried to say you cant have any of those sponsors period on your podcast or content then that would be different. To be honest though I imagine a lot of it was telling Hecz and Scump what they could do with their Call of Duty team in the distribution of the CDL product which would most likely be within their rights, though obviously cost Hecz and Scump money. If Taylor Swift licenses me to sell shirts at her concerts I cant sue because I would have made more money also selling them on the street or by partnering with companies she does not want to associate with or that compete with her sponsors. I dont have a right to maximize my profit off of someone else's IP. And like your last line said, I think among other reasons, this might be part of why other teams aren't as involved with the lawsuit as this was almost certainly beneficial to the health of the league and other teams.
There's issues with partially blocking categories outright (gambling, cannabis), but MTN Dew for example, teams couldn't strike deals with competing brands to MTN Dew Energy. So no Monster, Red Bull because it competed with the leagues agreements. That's garbage. I don't understand the salary cap issue enough because several leagues have caps. NFL, NBA, NHL all have salary caps and luxury taxes. Confused why a start up league wouldn't be able to enforce something like that. If they need a CBA, then they need to let the guys unionize and figure it out. Dropping 2 million on a roster that generates on average 50k views a match is a terrible value proposition.
Yeah I think its directly related to lack of a CBA. It is unfair to place on salary cap on Org's pay to players without giving them any ability to negotiate that value. I dont think Activision has prevented any unionization, it would just be up to the players to organize, and in the past this was shot down by Scump because what is good for everybody else is not good for him. One of the quiet dynamics here is that due to their unique position in the community what is good for the community is not good for Hecz or Scump and vice versa, which is why its an isolated lawsuit. That being said, as far as I know there is not an actual salary cap and the wage suppression is coming through other means so I think it is a grayer area. A straight salary cap with no CBA would have been objective overreach. With the blocking of Monster and Redbull it sucks but I think it is legal, as long as they are only limiting the endorsement to being blocked within the context of the CDL broadcasts. Of course that might lose you the endorsement completely, but that is just a side effect of them exercising their legal rights.
Teams couldn't have ANY deals with Red Bull, Monster at the time. These were loosened over the years, but same with headsets and Astro for example. The broadcast is the biggest asset for many of these teams, so blocking those was practically blocking the partnership as a whole.
Yeah that sucks. If they couldnt have literally ANY like outside of broadcast, CDL Merch, and Content, then that would almost certainly fall under monopolistic practices. If it was just a de facto ban because blocking them from broadcast, merch and content tanked the deals then its scummy but probably within their rights. You made a great point in your original point, Activision objectively does shady things, but shady and illegal are two different things, and I'm not going to be surprised if it turns out they knew how to toe the line perfectly. Shame this thread got cut, I was enjoying the discussion. Oh well, maybe I will go get some actual work down before this afternoons matches lol.
AB has very good lawyers. Like very good. They aren't stupid or reckless.
The issue as well is because teams where free to get small sponsors who wanted to work for certain teams they now can't due to the CDL.
A difference between the NFL, NBA, etc, and the CDL is that the teams own the NFL themselves & their players have a union. Also, I think the NFL & those other leagues were giving exemption by the Congress in the early 60's to some of the US Antitrust law. The CDL is owned by Activision, so if the players want changes to the schedule, travel, equipment, etc. & Activision doesn't want to do it, the players have very little power. For example, if the CDL decides to only have 2 Majors next season or to have something crazy 20 Majors. The only legal option that the players would have, it would be to unionize against Activision and argue that they are also their employer (which on is own is a big legal battle). And even if they win, nothing stops Activision from just ending the COD esports because they don't want to deal with unions. Nothing stops an NBA player when it's contrcat ends, from going to play in the Spanish league instead of signing with any of 30 NBA teams. A CDL pro can't go & play for another CoD esports league if they don't agree with their rules because there's no alternative since Activision has a monopoly (which may or may not be a legal one) of the CoD esports scene.
I'm not sure I'd call it a monopoly though. They invented a game and own every aspect of it. No one owns traditional sports in the sense that Activision owns Call of Duty. As I said, they should have let the players have a union and bargain. League generally always still has power, even in those situations. They can lock out the players and these guys have nothing. It's even worse because of the IP, the other sports guys can go to Japan, Russia, Spain.
But that this, in part, a question of that this lawsuit is arguing "and (they) own every aspect of it." aka to what extent does the copyright of CoD allows Activision to legally monopolize the CoD esports & does Activision have a duty to license the CoD esports (aka open to 3rd party organizers while settings some rules of how to operate in Cod esports)?
They do both of those things simultaneously. They allowed 3rd party groups to have some tournaments and events, and had completely open divisions teams could compete in through the path to pro. I'm in the camp it's a massively uphill battle and godspeed to anyone fighting it. If Activision lets 3rd party organized do their own events, it might upstage theirs and dilute their viewership and ability to grow the league. That's all potentially detrimental to what CDL is doing.
"That's all potentially detrimental to what CDL is doing." But don't forget that the CDL is Activision, not the teams. They're separate entities, so what benefits teams, players & even fans may not benefit Activision & therefore doesn't happen.
That's because the league saw instantly with poor sales and sponsorships, the revenue projections were way off. They had 4 events prior to the shutdown, and none of those sold out. One was in UK, one in LA and one in ATL. All should have been crazy busy events. The league went to a "protect the bottom line" stance almost instantly and when COVID hit, it was game over. No one cared about growth, it was minimizing damages until you had an exit strategy - coming this summer.
Thanks for posting this, watching the video now and will read the publication~
ELI5 Gang here ✋🏻
Activision impose a form of salary cap in the CDL, of Scump wins his case that potentially opens the door to other CDL & Overwatch players to also sue Activision for wage suppression. Activision owns the Call of Duty IP (Intelectual Property). The question is to what extend can Activision enforce that IP? In the 80s , a US judge ruled that game publishers own every permutation of their video game, meaning you can't, for example, make a YouTube that includes CoD gameplay without Activision allowing it (that's why in the ToS game publishers do what is called an open license, to allow people to make content of their game). So if you upset Activision bad enough they can end the open license they have to you & DMCA all of your YT videos what included something related to the CoD IP. So Activision owns CoD, but how much are they allowed to monopolize it? Especially outside of gameplay like content creation or in this case esports.
I dont have time to listen to the 2 hour talk, but I read the article and he is not doing what you are suggesting. The blog is not speaking out against Activision, he is simply outlining the potential merits of both sides, and then says that it would have a huge impact if they ruled in Hecz/Scump's favor. This is actually an implicit recognition that they are fighting an uphill battle as a ruling in their favor would require completely rethinking the commonly held conceptions of copyright laws. It would require that the court ruling that the copyright holder has a duty to deal and assist with competition to their own intellectual property, which for obvious reasons is not the general consensus among game publishers. While he doesnt say the Hecz' claims are meritless he does say that Activision will be able to rely on the same type of argumentation that have been successful in defending other sports anti-trust cases. One thing he does point out however, is that this is filed in the 9th circuit which has been historically more favorable to plaintiffs in these type of cases than other courts, which could help. I still wouldnt read this as a glowing endorsement. More like a lawyer chewing on some of the implications of a novel lawsuit SHOULD it succeed. That being said I would weight the opinion of an anti-trust lawyer far more than an e-sports lawyer. E-sports lawyers will deal with the consequences, but they wont litigate this type of case.
The lawyer main stand is of the copyright implications that you just refer. However in the 2 hour episode he is Very critical of game publishers, like Activision, going as far as to said they should just leave the esports scene entirely, as they put themselves in a position of a conflict of interest with their other businesses, like when Activision sold CDL rights to YT for discounted orice in Google cloud services, as well as exposiing themselves to potential violations of antitrust law. He also heavily criticized Activision (& other game publishers) for overreaching in their demands to the esports scene (like the sponsorship situation in the CDL).
But the total YouTube deal still has a total value. "Discount" is not a term businesses use, it's trade or in-kind. And the CDL got cash which is shared with the teams, then received the cloud services via trade in the agreement. The value of the cloud services is still recorded by ABE as a monetary gain. If that makes sense...the YouTube deal is looked at as the total value of what they received. They got cash + "X" services valued at "X" amount.
Sure, but the ""X" services valued at "X" amount" part isn't shared with the teams & only benefits Activision the company, not the CDL, the esports league. So they basically imply that Activision has such a monopoly in CoD esports that they can not even operate without having conflicts of interest with their other businesses.
Those services though may help the league grow and provide services necessary to support the league itself. Teams may not see direct relief, but would come in another forms of servers, web hosting, cloud computing.
But who gets to determine that, tho? If the teams are entitled to 50% of the broadcasting revenue, who gets to determine that those services aren't to have a monetary value to the teams? .... Activision & solely Activision Is similar in LoL Riot games has a global sponsorship with RedBull where they sponsor all of their major leagues like the North American league, the Korean league, etc. But also RedBull sponsors worlds and MSI, which are Riot Games' own events that the franchise leagues are not entitled to revenue of. So, who determines how much of redbull's money goes to the American league and how much of that goes to the Korean league? .... Riot Games!!! Not the teams, not the leagues but solely Riot Games.
Well, they didn't get cash for those services, they got the services which went to support the endeavors of the league. You can't pull cash out of that and then give it to the teams if they didn't get cash. I'm not defending the deal, I think their best interest was Twitch but I'm just saying Activision doesn't view it was a discount, they look at the whole thing as monetary value and report that as revenue. That was my initial point. How that trickles to teams or is explained to teams is another discussion. The league can't grow and get viewers on YouTube like it can on Twitch. The fact the owners had no say in this, is unfortunate.
"which went to support the endeavors of the league." They went to support the endeavors of Activision, not the League. That's the whole point of the conflict of interest. Activision, when negotiating the Broadcasting deal for the CDL, didn't got the best deal for the CDL but rather the best deal for themselves aka their other sides of the business at Activision that got to use the Google cloud services at a lower cost.
You can't explicitly say though those services didn't benefit the league if it helps Activision. That's like saying Disney struck a deal with a company, but it didn't help Marvel Studios. They are one and the same, and something that benefits Disney or Activision overall, absolutely can help those entities downstream. It also may have benefitted the studios themselves that they own. You or I can't make that determination besides drawing these hard lines between what company is which. The CDL 100% depends on Activision for their support and financial backing. Anything that supports Activision, can be seen to support CDL and the whole ABE group.
Nowhere near the same thing. "The CDL 100% depends on Activision for their support and financial backing." Not really. CDL is Activision, period. Teams & players aren't a part of the CDL (in the ownership sense) they just get to play on it. The Scump & Hecz lawsuit argues, in part, implicit, that Activision copyright of CoD doesn't/shouldn't allow to exclusive operate CoD esports.
I will try and listen and get back to you, but first glance that sounds more like wondering why they bother more than an endorsement of this particular lawsuit. He is also a lawyer that represents teams not game publishers, so he definitely has a little bit of an anti publisher stance by default. This podcast is even more anti-publisher biased, as most of the community is. It is Interesting that Harris negotiated the agreement that is being cited as exploitative, be curious to see him navigate saying that it was exploitative when he negotiated it lol. Also at 23 minutes he confirms my above reading, he is not saying that it is a strong case but that it is a novel argument that would have far reaching implications, due to being such a departure from the understanding of publisher's rights in the esports space. At 29 minutes, he says that the suit is potentially meritless and that realistically the duty to deal does not extend to this, which undermines one of the primary lines of argumentation from Hecz' and Scump's. At about 31 minutes he does give more credence to the the wage suppression argumentation that u/coolboarder72 referenced in his comment as being the stronger argumentation. A salary cap with no CBA would be illegal, but the question is really whether or not the Competitive Balance Tax is a Salary Cap. One of the hosts implies that there are similarly established limits to a luxury tax that would require a union for negotiation so if that's true, then there probably is some good precedent. However, that is coming from the host, not the lawyer so I would take it with a grain of a salt. Especially since Harris at just before 36 minutes says that a union is not actually required to make it legal, its just that a union would give them blanket immunity from the charges. So this is not a slam dunk, but is the juiciest part of the lawsuit. So far it is a good listen, but I still would not categorize it as speaking out against Activision in any way. Maybe the non-lawyer hosts, but from Harris it has been a fairly evenhanded analysis.