Nintendo is reportedly lodging copyright claims against YouTube videos that feature unauthorised music from its vast library of video game soundtracks.
According to YouTuber Gilva Sunner (thanks, GI.biz), the Japanese developer/publisher has issued copyright strikes against hundreds of their videos that contain themes from a range of Nintendo first-party titles, including games like Super Mario World to Fire Emblem Awakening.
“115 videos in total blocked so far,” they tweeted. “They started manually with the most viewed content on the channel, and are now going through the playlists one by one I guess. Looking at the time of the claims, it seems these are coming from Japan HQ.”
Game over pic.twitter.com/lsLKKg8ZF8
— GilvaSunner (@GilvaSunner) August 13, 2019
According to Kotaku, other channels have also been hit by the strikes. BrawlBRSTMs3 announced it was voluntarily terminating the channel after also receiving a number of copyright claims.
“Part of the reason for our voluntary shutdown is out of respect for the copyright owners of all music we’ve shared,” the YouTuber said before the channel was shuttered. “Thank you all for your contributions and support over the past 9 years. You’ve all made it very fun, and I hope you’ve enjoyed our favourite uploads.”
For some time, Nintendo has been viewed as one of the less accommodating publishers for content creators on YouTube. Last year launched its Nintendo Creators Program to permit approved content creators to use its assets for videos in exchange for a slice of the profit, but that was closed last November.
“We are ending the Nintendo Creators Program (NCP) to make it easier for content creators to make and monetise videos that contain Nintendo game content,” the company said at the time. “We will no longer ask creators to submit their videos to the NCP, and creators can continue showing their passion for Nintendo by following Nintendo’s guidelines.”
It’s unclear if these videos have been struck because they’re deemed to have been in breach of Nintendo’s guidelines, or if soundtracks, in particular, have been targeted due to plans to bring official soundtracks for sale or stream, such as on Spotify.
