Who owns dota

In , he sold Valve his rights to Dota 2 "for a handsome price," as the ruling puts it. Valve later also hired Eul and acquired his rights to the game as well. Guinsoo, meanwhile, was hired by Riot, which was working on the Dota -like League of Legends. Riot bought Guinsoo's claim to the Dota copyright and sold it in turn to Blizzard. To avoid any clashes over the Dota name, Blizzard and Valve settled out of court in Valve would retain the rights to the name for standalone games like Dota 2 , while Blizzard could use it to refer to Warcraft and Starcraft mods specifically a project then called "Blizzard Dota" would eventually become Heroes of the Storm.

This history is getting hashed out in court because Valve and Blizzard are now suing mobile developers Lilith and uCool, whose respective games Dota Legends and Heroes Charge allegedly infringe on the Dota copyrights. In court, mobile developer uCool tried to argue that Dota All-stars is a collective work, because it "took the most popular Dota heroes and arranged them into a new game.

Instead, Breyer determined that "the record contains ample evidence that Eul, Guinsoo, and IceFrog were the masterminds behind their respective versions of Dota and Dota All-stars. In this way, the modders in question are much like a director or screenwriter who consults experts for help with a movie. But that's not the end of the case. For one, the original EULA for Warcraft III says mod-makers can't use the game's World Editor "for commercial purposes including, but not limited to, distribution of [mods] on a stand-alone basis or packaged with other software or hardware.

I've seen people blaming Valve when something's wrong with Dota. Who really owns this Game? Showing 1 - 11 of 11 comments. Valve made dota 2, Icefrog dota 1. Originally posted by Wikipedia :. Last edited by riph ; 6 May, am. Nik View Profile View Posts. Originally posted by Nik :. Many esports titles have front-facing directors and designers that put a face to the development team behind the game. While Kaplan and Donlon routinely get in front of a camera to discuss the state of their game and the rationales behind meta-shifting patches, IceFrog is a much more elusive character.

Instead of regularly talking with Dota 2 fans, IceFrog shows up just a few times each year, and sometimes even less than that. When he does appear, it will only be a sentence or two wishing followers a happy holiday or pointing them in the direction of the latest patch notes. For instance: they try and claim that by promoting DOTA in-game and at their events, they therefore own the trademark. Blizzard also has regularly and consistently advertised and promoted the DotA Mods via the Battle.

Blizzard also has regularly and consistently advertised and promoted the DotA Mods at its annual convention, Blizzcon, at gaming events and conventions, and in the gaming and mainstream media.

I think the key word here is consistently: if this goes to arbitration I'd expect Valve to make Blizzard show how and where they've advertised DOTA on their official sites, and in-game. In five minutes messing about with archive. The next section of the document relates to how Blizzard are already licensing the DOTA trademark to external organisations. And it starts to get really, really interesting.

Paragraph Blizzard has licensed various third parties and third party websites, including but not limited to the websites www. To the extent that the owners of any of these websites have used the DOTA Marks in commerce, they have done so pursuant to license with the Blizzard and for the benefit of Blizzard. They're under license from Blizzard, too.

I do wonder if that's an implied license, or something you'd have to apply for via legal blizzard.