Fans Think There Is Something Off About Those Nintendo Takedowns
Nintendo has a long history of being strict with its intellectual properties, especially towards independent content creators – be it streamers or YouTubers. Content creators who make videos based around Nintendo IPs are often at risk of receiving copyright strikes, making it a rather risky business for anyone wishing to monetize their videos and streams. The slightest issues have resulted in YouTube removing creators' videos from its platform, and even independent developers have felt Nintendo's wrath in the past in huge lawsuits. Recently, things have been getting even worse, as Nintendo sent out another wave of copyright strikes in early 2022.
This time, the situation seems to be a bit more complicated to onlookers. While Nintendo itself has been the source of many of these copyright claims, not all of them have come from the Japanese company directly. Instead, another third-party, seemingly unrelated company seems to be the source of some of the strikes. Fans have recently noticed that something is off with how things have been handled regarding the strikes on YouTube, and have raised concerns about the mysterious third party.
A company named A-PAB is striking Nintendo content
Many of the recent Nintendo copyright strikes seem to come from a third-party company by the name of A-PAB, which stands for the "Association for Promotion of Advanced Broadcasting Services." Nintendo fans have independently investigated this company in the past and found that it was seemingly behind the temporary blocking of "Kirby Reanimated", a non-profit project created by independent animators (via TheGamer). Nintendo has also gone on record to confirm that it has not been behind the recent copyright strikes, which seems to target content surrounding "Kirby" in particular, though it has targeted "Mario" and other Nintendo-related content as well.
Popular YouTube OldClassicGamer commented on the "Kirby Reanimation Collab" video on YouTube, claiming that A-PAB has engaged in these kinds of practices for at least the past three years without the knowledge or consent of Nintendo itself. "I know who blocked this video few days ago," OldClassicGamers tweeted. "The real name of company is A-PAB and for the past 3 years for the reasons unknown to me, they have been trying to eradicate all Kirby content on this platform." According to OGC, A-PAB has also launched these kinds of false-flag attacks in Japan.
Unfortunately, even if Nintendo hasn't given the go-ahead to issue copyright strikes on content, YouTube will often act quickly whenever a complaint related to copyright is filed. Hopefully, this situation could help change that.