Since Nintendo is so protective about its intellectual property, we nearly always put the sidenote “Let’s see how long Nintendo lawyers allow this to remain online” whenever we write about someone doing something cool with, say, Mario Bros.
Usually, it doesn’t take long, and then it’s over, but not this time.
Heroes of Hyrule, a previously unreleased and obscure Nintendo DS game, was the subject of a 20-minute documentary posted by the video game history channel DidYouKnowGaming (DYKG) in October of last year.
It was a Zelda spinoff intended for Nintendo’s well-known portable, as the name suggests.
Before DYKG received a copyright notification and automatically deleted the film from public view on December 28 after it had been on YouTube for nearly 90 days.
The copyright strike, according to channel owner Shane Gill, accused him of utilizing “unauthorized material” in his video.
It’s safe to presume that it was alluding to the 22-page pitch paper that DYKG legitimately acquired from former Retro staff members.
Gill insists that he followed the Fair Use Doctrine and used the information for journalistic purposes. He thus stated as much in a counterclaim he submitted to YouTube.
Nintendo allegedly tried to erase the video because it disapproved of what Gill’s study revealed.
In Nintendo’s defence, about 90% of the content is protected by copyright, including whole pages of language from the pitch document. It’s not a straightforward fair use scenario.
It’s not clear-cut in Nintendo’s favor either because of the small documentary’s tone and obvious historical archiving intent.
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