Hi everyone, you may have noticed that my latest video is no longer available. Overnight I was served with a copyright takedown from Nintendo and received a copyright strike from YouTube.
The video was a review of the MIG Flash v2 and Cartridge Dumper, which I demonstrated as a use for backing up and preserving your own Switch cartridges. In the video I showed how to take my own games and convert them to digital files, much like you would back up CDs to mp3s, DVDs to mp4s, etc. There are legal protections for backing up media for you own personal use in the United States and I used no software to circumvent Nintendo’s anti-piracy measures – in fact, the Cartridge Dumper itself requires no software to use. If you are curious, the applicable source is US Code Title 17: www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/te…
Nintendo’s copyright notice is because at one point in the video I showed the title screen of Super Mario 3D World on my Switch, when cycling between various Switch games. So their copyright claim has nothing to do with the cartridge dumper, but rather they are exercising their authority as IP owners of that game to take the video down. This is the same as taking down any other random video that shows Switch gameplay on a Switch – but because they cannot claim copyright infringement on the cart/dumper itself, they claimed a different clip to remove the whole video.
This tactic has been used by them previously, and one of the reasons why I am always hesitant to show Switch gameplay and emulation on this channel. I firmly believe that we are users should have the ability to preserve our own media, especially in the face of disappearing digital marketplaces. This is why I have bought 100+ physical Switch cartridges over the years and found the idea of the Cartridge Dumper so fascinating and worth sharing with you on video.
It was my mistake showing Super Mario 3D World in the video. I focused the majority of my 23-minute video on IP that Nintendo doesn’t own, but while demonstrating the function of the cartridge I did show the title screen. My thinking at the time was that showing a static title screen running on a Switch wouldn’t be constituted as “gameplay”, but obviously that was incorrect.
While I likely have a case to counter-claim and fight for the video’s restoration, I simply don’t have the means to get into a legal battle with a multi-billion corporation known for their cutthroat legal team. I considered re-uploading the video after removing the three-second shot of Super Mario 3D World’s title screen, but there is no guarantee that they won’t serve me another copyright claim for something else, leading to a second copyright strike and putting my entire channel in jeopardy. Long story short, I am helpless to do anything about it, and the sad reality is that I cannot expect Google/YouTube to go to bat against one of their biggest content partners on account of this channel and three seconds of innocuous title screen footage.
So as it stands, I will have to move on from this strike and simply make more videos focusing on what I love the most – showing how to play our favorite games on many different platforms. I’m heading home from Europe in a couple days and will start making new videos upon my return.
My own remarks:
Nobody makes me emulate more than Nintendo. For the first time ever, I want to cause financial damage to Nintendo. It frustrates me that I cannot hurt their profits more or really in any actually significant way. And its so sad, I used to really love Nintendo. But continuing to bully people to follow Japanese law who are not beholden to Japanese law needs to end. Immediately.
I don’t want Nintendo to disappear. I just want them to do better. If they want to apply Japanese law, thats totally cool and understandable – within the borders of Japan. I don’t live in Japan, and my government afford me more protections from businesses than Japan does. The fact that YouTube does this and nobody except the extremely wealthy that would never run into this problem in the first place can do anything about it is disgusting. So I will do what I have been doing since 2017: telling the company how I feel by not buying their products.