Nintendo Issues Massive Number of Copyright Blocks, Shutting Down GilvaSunner

Nintendo has always been notoriously protective of its intellectual property, but recently they have gone to extreme lengths to protect their content—like Smaug upon his hoard of gold, Nintendo doesn’t want anyone to have their music.

Youtube channel GilvaSunner posted on Twitter in August of 2019, showing that Nintendo issued multiple copyright claims against the channel for posting songs from the soundtracks of many of their games. GilvaSunner followed up on January of 2020, stating that Nintendo of Japan had issued over 1300 copyright strikes against their channel.

But on February 1st, 2022, GilvaSunner provided an update to the situation, stating that in addition to the 1300 blocks their channel received, they had received an additional 2200 strikes—a move that essentially has forced them to shut the channel down.

There are very few ways to listen to music from Nintendo games, and Nintendo seems keen on removing any and all avenues to do this—or otherwise punish anyone who tries to make it available. It’s worth mentioning also, that GilvaSunner did not monetize their channel, which they admit is not a justification for uploading Nintendo’s content.

Nintendo has never really been one to play nice when it comes to their content on Youtube. This was seen at it’s worst back in 2015 when Nintendo issued content ID claims against any Youtuber that used game footage, and tried to force them into the “Nintendo Creator’s Program,” which carved profits away from the creator—even if it wasn’t Nintendo related. Thankfully, Nintendo ended that program back in 2020, but this recent move seems like a colossal step backwards.

This is, of course, in addition to Nintendo’s notorious rigidity towards fan games involving their intellectual property, most infamously shutting down Pokémon: Uranium, and AM2R.

Of course, Nintendo is well within it’s legal right to take down any video or product that infringes on it’s IP. However, or a company so beloved; that shaped the childhoods of so many gamers and game developers, its strange that the company does not want to highlight all the things that made it so special.