Nintendo has always been known for being very protective of its IPs, but some would argue that it borders on being overly extreme. Only recently, it issued cease and desist orders against a content creator for making and distributing his own custom-made Joy-Cons, which were made for charity, and now it’s being reported that the publisher has taken down a bunch of YouTube videos that featured Nintendo music.
GilvaSunner, a YouTuber who uploads soundtracks from various video games, including Nintendo titles, shared on Twitter that they had received copyright claims from Nintendo Japan that took down the soundtracks for Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Mario Kart Wii. Later, they confirmed that the same had happened to the soundtracks for Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Super Mario Kart.
This isn’t anything new, as GilvaSunner was hit with a similar wave in 2019, though they never said the copyright claims were from Nintendo at the time. While Nintendo technically is in the right to do this, GilvaSunner does point out that they were not monetizing videos (so they weren’t profiting off of Nintendo’s music, unlike other content creators) and that Nintendo doesn’t provide any alternative for listening to its games’ music.
That second point is the key reason why fans take umbrage with Nintendo taking down videos like GilvaSunner’s. Whereas loads of other video games (examples include the Final Fantasy games and Kingdom Hearts 3) have their official soundtracks readily available either as physical CDs or through the likes of iTunes and Spotify, Nintendo rarely, if ever, does the same. Most of the time, soundtracks are part of limited collector’s editions, and even then they don’t always contain the entire soundtrack.
Many have stated that, if Nintendo really doesn’t want people listening to its music on YouTube, then it should actually sell them or make them available on services like Spotify, as there is clearly a demand for it.
It certainly feels as if Nintendo is suffering from a string of PR disasters as of late. It’s found itself at odds with Super Smash Bros.’ competitive community after shutting down a tournament for not using an official copy of Super Smash Bros. Melee and then canceled the livestream for a Splatoon 2 tournament’s finals when multiple teams expressed support for the Smash community.
And there’s also the controversy surrounding Nintendo’s decision to have the Super Mario 3D All-Stars collection and Western release of the first-ever Fire Emblem game be limited-time releases, with both games to be stop being distributed physically and digitally by the end of March 2021.
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