#robobot remaster or a brand new game.

[returntodreamland]

onward and forward to 33 years!!!

[wolfgabe]

The fate of Nintendo Youtube music and why attacking Nintendo is not the answer

So recently it has come to my attention that BrawlBRSTMs3 X as well as several other notable youtube music channels will be taking down all of their Nintendo content in response to copyright blocks issued by NIntendo. While I am somewhat saddened by this news in hindsight it is not too surprising especially with Nintendo’s revised content guidelines as of late 2018 which were likely done in response to the massive Smash Ultimate OST leak. Unsurprisingly people are harping on Nintendo and calling them greedy, evil, selfish etc. This is not the first time a situation such as this has occurred and as usual people apparently seem to be unable to consider Nintendo’s actions in the context of the company itself.

To understand why companies like Nintendo are so strict with their IP you need to understand the way copyright law works in general. The general gist is that you cannot just simply be aware someone is using your content without your consent you are also generally expected to show that you are actively enforcing and protecting your IP. If you do not then you risk damaging the integrity of your brand or in worse cases losing your trademark. This is especially true in places like Japan which from what I hear IPs that go unprotected tend to get dumped into public domain fairly quickly.

As a somewhat unrelated example, look at what happened with Calvin and Hobbes. Bill Watterson generally avoided licensing out his characters and from my understanding was generally reluctant to go after bootleggers which is what led to all those pissing Calvin decals. By the time United Press Syndicate the distributor of the Calvin and Hobbes comics decided to take action it was pretty much too late as the strip had already ended and they lacked the rights to license the materials. 

While I will miss the extensions I am not bothered too much as he will still carry most of my favorite non Nintendo music such as Sonic. Of course I listen to plenty of other music channels such as Crunchii and Truesonic 1. To answer the question why doesn’t Nintendo as well as other game companies make their OSTs more wildly available to the public you only have to look at Youtube itself. It would not surprise me in the slightest if the fact that many people just listen to game music on youtube is arguably the biggest culprit for killing any motivation for game developers to put their OSTs on sale. To those of you who are unaware Nintendo seems to actually have released a few more of their game OSTs on certain digital stores. You can actually buy the Kirby Planet Robobot OST on google play believe it or not. If we ever see a Nintendo OST released on google play or itunes why not show your support by actually buying it. If the OSTs sell good enough then Nintendo might feel encouraged to release more.

The other issue I think people often seem to overlook is the ownership of the music itself. Looking at Smash Ultimate it’s pretty obvious why Nintendo cannot just release a standalone OST considering how the large amount of third party songs included is a massive legal minefield in itself. If you ever wondered why Mega Man and Castlevania got more love music wise in Smash compared to some other series its because the soundtracks for those games are don’t really suffer from the same sort of ownership headaches that plague the OSTs for the classic Sonic games and Final Fantasy The rights to Sonic 1 and 2′s soundtrack are mainly owned by Masato Nakamura and Dreams Come True while with Sonic 3 there is the large elephant in the room that is Micheal Jackson which has been the primary reason Sonic 3 and Knuckles has been omitted from many recent Sega compilations and rereleases as well as why they stated their probably won’t be a Christian Whitehead remaster of Sonic 3. This is primarily why in the Sonic Levels for Lego Dimensions the actual sonic music that was used was primarily from the Adventure games which Sega actually does own the rights to as well as the reason why the music for the sonic 1 and 2 stages were left out of the official Sonic Mania OST release. Its not surprising then that the music player for Smash Ultimate is basically like an offline version of Spotify.

I am pleased that BrawlBRSTMs3 X himself is handling the situation maturely and fairly well as well as taking the time to explain things in detail sadly though there are probably a lot of people who will still call for Nintendo’s head on a plate simply cause they have committed the cardinal sin of expressing their right to protect their IP. Always remember at the end of the day Nintendo is a business not a charity. As a company they owe you nothing and are obligated to protect and enforce ownership of their characters and IPs