GilvaSunner YouTube Channel Shuts Down Due To Copyright Strikes From Nintendo; Pokemon Releases Music
from the sigh dept
The Nintendo vs. GilvaSunner YouTube channel saga has come to an end. It had become sort of an annual thing for Nintendo to copyright strike large numbers of videos on that channel, which mostly has "videos" consisting of beloved video game music from Nintendo titles. Over 100 videos were struck in 2019. Then another swath of videos were struck in 2020. After taking 2021 off, Nintendo struck over 1,300 of GilvaSunner's uploads a few weeks ago. Now, while we've taking pains to point out that Nintendo can do this, as it owns that IP, it certainly didn't have to go this route. There were plenty of other alternatives, including offering this music on any relevant streaming platform itself, which it has always declined to do.
Well, as I said, it's over. The GilvaSunner channel is to be shutdown due to the volume of copyright strikes it received.
Following the strike though, Gilvasunner has announced they will be deleting their channel this Friday (February 4).
Writing on Twitter, they said: “Hi everyone, after the 1300 copyright blocks from Nintendo a few days ago, the YT channel received another 2200 blocks today (with likely many more to follow). After thinking about this a lot over the past few days, I’ve decided that at this point it’s really not worth it to keep the channel up any longer, and will therefore delete the GilvaSunner YouTube channel (or what’s left of it) this coming Friday.”
I'll point out again that GilvaSunner's channel did not compete with Nintendo in any way, going all the way back to 2019. Its videos didn't replace buying Nintendo games. The channel didn't compete with legit sources for Nintendo game music, since Nintendo declined to create any such legit sources. This was, for the past 3 years, simply Nintendo trying to stamp out a resource for Nintendo fans to celebrate Nintendo music, thereby expressing and solidifying their fandom.
But when it comes to this latest round of copyright strikes, it comes with a slight sliver of a difference.
Announcing the Pokémon DP Sound Library! 🎶
All the music you love from the original Pokémon Diamond and Pokémon Pearl games is now available to listen to AND download for use in personal video and music creation.
🎧 Tune in: https://t.co/jtypxqVG5o pic.twitter.com/5r3rTtmcjn
— Pokémon (@Pokemon) February 2, 2022
So, while this is nothing like all of Nintendo making its game music available for streaming, it's at least a step in that direction. But think about this for a moment: for 3 years Nintendo has been warring with a YouTube channel celebrating its music without offering any real streaming alternative -- yes, some game music has been available to buy on iTunes for some time, but that's not the same thing -- and once the company managed to kill off that channel, one of its properties releases a site to both stream and download for free some of that same music.
Is that not both insane and annoying? Nintendo didn't have to release this site; GilvaSunner was doing it for free. But Nintendo is so in love with controlling all of its IP that this is where we somehow landed.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: copyright, gilvasunner, pokemon, takedowns, video game music, video games, videos
Companies: nintendo, youtube
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
To paraphrase our email list troll, whom I think went by jhon before we labeled him Sanford Wallace,
"But GilvaSunner was stealing all the value out of the email list Nintendo can generate from fans visting this data mining honeypot masquerading as fan engagement!"
...I think I said the quiet part out loud.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I have feeling no one is going to visit their library after this.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Two things.
Nintendo doesn’t offer its music on streaming services; even if people want to legally stream it, they can’t.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
One step forward after thousands of steps back
What baffles me about the game music case is how it flies in the face of the very purported reason we have copyright laws.
The theory goes that without copyright law, people can make more money out of copying other people's works in ways that the original authors can't compete with. This would drive fewer people to create new literary and artistic works, and once this happened en masse, the public domain would be replete with new works. Thus, copyright was seen as a bargain: If you create new works for the public to enjoy, we agree not to use or copy your work for a limited time. Once this monopoly expires, it will fall into the public domain for everyone to use.
So, in other words, copyright is a tool designed to ensure new creative works come into the world. But here, copyright is essentially being used to take works people enjoy and then suppress and censor them. Nintendo isn't releasing the music people want to listen to and enjoy and then holding anyone else who's releasing the music instead liable for copyright infringement. According to the law, this is within Nintendo's rights. But this legal move flies in the face of what grounds that law being used was based on. Can someone tell me how keeping copyrighted works the public wants to enjoy unreleased and issuing takedowns against third parties who post the work themselves promotes progress?
But the copyright maximalists will point out that the Pokemon sound library shows that Nintendo does want to exploit this market, and heaven forbid someone else usurps that market. But that sound library isn't all of Nintendo's game music. There's plenty more where that came from! And I also find it interesting that they mention using the music in their own "personal video" creations in that announcement tweet. Unless there are some terms on that site granting people who download music from the library a blanket synchronization license, they don't have the right to put the music in their own videos. And who wants to bet that Nintendo's gonna Nintendo and DMCA people who start using the music from their library in their YouTube videos? Even if it's not like GilvaSunner's YouTube channel where the music is all that's uploaded with nothing more? Copyright is back at doing what it does best: Being a censorship regime, which copyright law was born out of!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
One step forward after thousands of steps back
What baffles me about the game music case is how it flies in the face of the very purported reason we have copyright laws.
The theory goes that without copyright law, people can make more money out of copying other people's works in ways that the original authors can't compete with. This would drive fewer people to create new literary and artistic works, and once this happened en masse, the public domain would be replete with new works. Thus, copyright was seen as a bargain: If you create new works for the public to enjoy, we agree not to use or copy your work for a limited time. Once this monopoly expires, it will fall into the public domain for everyone to use.
So, in other words, copyright is a tool designed to ensure new creative works come into the world. But here, copyright is essentially being used to take works people enjoy and then suppress and censor them. Nintendo isn't releasing the music people want to listen to and enjoy and then holding anyone else who's releasing the music instead liable for copyright infringement. According to the law, this is within Nintendo's rights. But this legal move flies in the face of what grounds that law being used was based on. Can someone tell me how keeping copyrighted works the public wants to enjoy unreleased and issuing takedowns against third parties who post the work themselves promotes progress?
But the copyright maximalists will point out that the Pokemon sound library shows that Nintendo does want to exploit this market, and heaven forbid someone else usurps that market. But that sound library isn't all of Nintendo's game music. There's plenty more where that came from! And I also find it interesting that they mention using the music in their own "personal video" creations in that announcement tweet. Unless there are some terms on that site granting people who download music from the library a blanket synchronization license, they don't have the right to put the music in their own videos. And who wants to bet that Nintendo's gonna Nintendo and DMCA people who start using the music from their library in their YouTube videos? Even if it's not like GilvaSunner's YouTube channel where the music is all that's uploaded with nothing more? Copyright is back at doing what it does best: Being a censorship regime, which copyright law was born out of!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
There been talk that it may not even be Nintendo but instead someone impersonating Nintendo.
SolScribbles has a thread about it on Twitter.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Even if that proves true, that doesn’t change the fact that the actual Nintendo could still strike down the channel. Given the precarious legal position GilvaSunner would find themselves in if they tried to fight the takedowns, shutting the channel down is the smartest possible move.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: One step forward after thousands of steps back
That is spin used by gatekeepers to justify stronger and stronger copyright. It has never been true, as pre-Internet most works submitted to a publisher were dismissed unseen. Also, the poor starving artists is a creation of those same middlemen, as they had hundreds of replacements trying to find a publisher.
Even a casual cruise around the Internet will find more works published without any expectation of making money that works published with the Intent of making money. Further, as many self publishers have come to understand, fans will support them so that they can create new works, and tends to direct the money to the actual creators, rather than those who offer other peoples work.
I believe that in the age of the Internet, protection of attribution is all a creator needs, as their creativity is the valuable skill.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Copyright isn't about creation, it's about control.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Possible Impersonator
As someone already said on here, there is a big chance that it may not have been actual Nintendo doing this to him. Of course Nintendo does usually like to be Nintendo, but I still think it's best to properly update this article about that Twitter thread.
https://twitter.com/SolScribbles/status/1489417889232916480
[ link to this | view in thread ]
so entitled
I want to listen to it and the owner won't let me
Ergo I can create a channel sharing the music?
The world is horrid. A lot of the time you can't have what you want.
When you need food or shelter then you should be out there fighting.
When you want videogame music then play a videogame.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: One step forward after thousands of steps back
The same can be said about AM2R. Nintendo knew about it for over a decade and only when the project was to be released, for free no less, did Nintendo suddenly decide to revive the Metroid franchise from a second hiatus to release none other than, wait for it: A Metroid 2 Remake. While at the same time demanding that the AM2R project be shutdown under copyright.
The same can also be said of the Nintendo Creator's Program. Nintendo would routinely demand take down of videos that contained even the slightest trace of their IP. Even if such use was obviously covered by the Fair Use Exemption. Nintendo got a lot of heat for that and so they released their Creator's Program to allow people to apply for the use of their works, while still going after Fair Use streamers if they didn't get Nintendo's blessing. (Which, for those that are ignorant, Fair Use doesn't require under the law.)
At this point one could say that without GilvaSunner, there's a good chance the new sound library wouldn't exist today. I.e. That the sound library exists solely to have justification for the takedown of GilvaSunner in the court of public opinion. Just like AM2R and the Fair Use streamers. Nintendo's goal is to do the bare minimum to gain just a little credence in favor of their abusive position.
If I had to guess, Nintendo is probably doing so because they do not want to be the easily relatable poster child for a copyright reform that would only serve to harm their profits and earn them the ire of their fellow maximalists.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
🚨 UPDATE 🚨
YouTube has confirmed the veracity of the takedown claims.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
If GilvaSunner had only posted the music in the specific sound library that Nintendo released, that justification might hold up better. But he didn’t. So it doesn’t.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: so entitled
Easier said than done. For every game you'd need a working copy of it and a working system to play it on. Then you factor in that a lot of games/systems are expensive on the second-hand market, assuming you can find one at all. Not to mention that many games/systems were exclusive to certain parts of the world, or had their soundtracks changed between regions/revisions. And some of them require accessories to play.
On top of that, you'd need to be good enough at the game to hear the whole soundtrack, assuming you know how much of a soundtrack there is to hear - and even that assumes there's no tracks the game doesn't play in whole or in part.
Wanting to listen to game soundtracks online isn't being "entitled" - it's wanting to listen to great (and sometimes not-so-great) music without the fuss of trying to track down and play the (sometimes pretty lousy) game in question, especially if you're not a gamer but enjoy music.
But oh, I'm not done with your snobbish attitude yet!
Sure, because everyone can do that. Never mind that a lot of people have physical and/or mental conditions that prohibit them from "be[ing] out there fighting", or simply can't make any headway out there in the world no matter what they try. I know what that's like, both in my own experience and with some in my immediate family.
tl;dr - Take your snobbish attitude and shove it firmly up your sphincter.
[ link to this | view in thread ]