DeoxysPrime, who runs a YouTube account with 165,000 subscribers that is home to all kinds of video game soundtracks, has had to remove their entire library of Nintendo music after receiving over 500 copyright claims from the trigger-happy company.
They weren’t hosting uploads of commercially-available albums; rather, like the rest of their channel (which we’ve featured on the site before!), they had uploaded the complete soundtracks to titles like Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon taken directly from the games themselves. In a statement posted to Twitter on May 30, they write:
Effective immediately I will be removing all Nintendo music from my channel. With 500+ claims and a dozen soundtracks blocked over the last week it’s pretty clear they don’t want their music on YouTube. I’m sorry to everyone who enjoys their music but I don’t have much choice.
I have no intention of deleting my channel and the rest of my non-Nintendo soundtracks will remain up for the foreseeable future. It’s frustrating but as I’ve said before it’s ultimately their choice to have their music blocked on the platform.
Best of luck to anyone still holding out having Nintendo music on YouTube. So many of those soundtracks have never gotten official releases. But like how bigger channels than mine have gotten hit before eventually those who take their place will end up like this too.
In a follow-up message posted on their YouTube page, they say:
Once again I’m sorry for the inconvenience this will cause, as I enjoy listening to Nintendo music on here just as much as you all do, but it just doesn’t make any sense to continue on like this.
As always you can follow me on Twitter for any other updates and as a general reminder, if you do see any soundtracks on my channel removed, it’s always safe to assume it was for copyright reasons. Be respectful of their right to do this but also please continue to push Nintendo to release their music in official formats, because there’s no reason these soundtracks should have to disappear forever. Thank you.
Some of the soundtracks that have been taken down include those for the Smash series, Donkey Kong Country games, Wind Waker, F-Zero series and most of the modern Mario and Mario Kart games.
Like they say, Nintendo, if you’re going to do this please at least release these soundtracks in official formats (albums! Spotify!), because I am getting so tired of having to link to this old post all the time.
This isn’t the first time a major music channel has been targeted by Nintendo recently. Back in January GilvaSunner received over 1300 copyright blocks, saying at the time “I’m…not angry or surprised that Nintendo is doing this, but I do think it’s a bit disappointing there is hardly an alternative”.
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