A fake Nintendo lawyer is scaring YouTubers, and it’s not clear YouTube can stop him
In late September, Dominik “Domtendo” Neumayer received a troubling email. He had just featured The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom in a series of videos on his YouTube channel. Now, those videos were gone.
“Some of your videos have been removed,” YouTube explained matter-of-factly. The email said that Domtendo had now received a pair of copyright strikes. He was now just one copyright strike away from losing his 17-year-old channel and the over 1.5 million subscribers he’d built up.
At least, he would have been, if Domtendo hadn’t spotted something fishy about the takedown notice — something YouTube had missed.
Domtendo had been a little bit confused right from the start; the strikes didn’t make sense. Like countless other creators, Domtendo specializes in “Let’s Play” videos, a well-established genre where streamers play through the entirety of a game on camera.
Nintendo has a complicated relationship with the fans who use its copyrighted works, infamously shutting down all sorts of unauthorized projects by sending cease-and-desists. It has gone after YouTubers, too. But both the Japanese gaming giant and the broader…
Read the full story at The Verge.
Summary
The article discusses how a YouTuber named Domtendo received copyright strikes from a fake Nintendo lawyer after featuring a game on his channel. The strikes put his channel at risk of being shut down. However, Domtendo noticed discrepancies in the takedown notice and realized it was fake. The incident highlights the challenges creators face with copyright issues on YouTube. Nintendo has a history of taking action against unauthorized projects and YouTubers using its copyrighted content. The situation raises questions about YouTube’s ability to prevent fake takedowns.
This article was summarized using ChatGPT