Nintendo is believed to be at it again with YouTube takedowns, reportedly targeting Zelda: Breath of the Wild mods.
The YouTuber supposedly in the company’s firing line is the streamer and modder known as ‘PointCrow’. He’s got 1.6 million subscribers and made headlines in 2021 for offering $10,000 USD to anyone who could assemble a Breath of the Wild multiplayer mod.
This creation was developed with the help of the modder ‘Alex Mangue’ over the past year, and now Nintendo has apparently gone on a rampage according to PointCrow – claiming more than 24 videos on his channel (including ones about the multiplayer mod). Apart from Zelda, this includes other Nintendo content like Mario and Pokémon.
In a new video upload titled “Nintendo is Taking Down My Videos”, PointCrow called out the video game giant (in a prepared statement, reviewed by his lawyer) for targeting his channel with two separate copyright strikes aimed at his Zelda multiplayer mod videos, and accused it of “deliberately” putting his livelihood in danger.
He hopes Nintendo can potentially consider reversing the decisions, as he admits he really can’t do much but plead and “move away from this kind of content”.
PointCrow insists he has “never encouraged piracy of Nintendo’s games”, has never sold the mods he commissioned, and notes how “all of the code is custom” – claiming it is “free of Nintendo assets”. The download links on the Zelda multiplayer mod’s Discord page have been removed, too.
The content creator also raised concerns about how his videos with “regular” Breath of the Wild gameplay have been unfairly targeted as well and believes his uploads fit within Nintendo’s game content guidelines.
This current situation has apparently escalated with Nintendo now being accused by other YouTubers of striking videos with “no context” but copyright removal. This supposedly includes even more regular videos, with the Breath of the Wild-focused YouTuber ‘Croton’ claiming that one of the videos they lost had “nothing to do with mods” and was simply a challenge run.
PointCrow warns this may set a precedent and is concerned these current takedowns could greatly impact YouTube coverage of the upcoming release The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom – with creators possibly having to worry about “Nintendo exercising their [sic] copyright over a video that is in line with their [sic] own policies”.
“So, if you’ve uploaded any video that features any Nintendo content, no matter how transformative or directly in line with their [sic] published guidelines, you are at risk.”
