Why Nintendo Keeps Blocking YouTube Videos
Channel: Video Game Story Time
Date: 2020-07-03

Nintendo just does not like YouTube. Popular YouTuber, Shesez, creator of Boundary Break, has this week complained loudly and publicly about Nintendo's decision to use the Content ID system to claim the copyright for one of his videos about Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Rather than claiming the ad revenue for this video, Nintendo has simply blocked it so that it can't be watched anywhere in the world.

Like it or not, Nintendo is completely within their rights to act this way. It's a sad fact that a lot of the content on YouTube is legally grey when it comes to copyright, and Nintendo is legally entitled to take down any video featuring their copyrighted material if they so choose.

But why have they chosen this action? What does Nintendo have to gain from taking down a YouTube video which shows a literal behind-the-scenes footage from Animal Crossing?

Well, in all honesty, Nintendo's long and messy history with YouTube has never been about the ad revenue. Nintendo is paranoid that videos of people playing games in any way other than the way they're meant to be played will have negative effects for the company as a whole.

If one person is boundary breaking, what's to stop others from doing the same? Right from the birth of YouTube's Let's Play community, Nintendo has been wholly opposed to people playing their games on camera in case, heaven forbid, someone might see something that causes them to avoid buying a game.

Which is, of course, preposterous. We've all bought games in the past solely because we watched a Let's Play and wanted to try the game for ourselves. But, Nintendo gotta Nintend.

Anyway, here's hoping you're staying safe.

Lots of love,
BretonStripes (http://twitter.com/bretonstriped) and Kotor (http://twitter.com/kotorcomics)

Sources:
https://web.archive.org/web/20140315234116/http://www.gamefront.com/nintendo-flexing-copyright-clout-on-youtube-lets-play-channels/
https://kotaku.com/nintendos-plan-to-work-with-youtubers-sounds-ambitiou-1591683075
https://kotaku.com/nintendo-doesnt-want-to-criminalize-obsessed-fans-5585802
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/m7j7yb/nintendo-takes-down-youtube-video-of-fan-showing-animal-crossing-glitches