If you’re a gamer like many others are, you’ll know how hard it is to find soundtracks to games we all know and love. Unless companies release official downloads, vinyls, or even CDs for their games, the one reliable source of video game music we turn to is Youtube.
Youtube has become home to the VGM (video game music) community, where people upload tracks and songs from different games. VGM channels have become the one stop shop to find multiple different OSTs (original soundtracks) from games people grew up with and games that we continue to play now.
And as seen by channels like GilvaSunner, the hardest soundtracks to upload to the internet are ones owned by Nintendo, the king of the industry.
Nintendo has had a long running history of heavily combating copyright infringement and bootlegging in the community. This is especially evident with their recent moves on the Youtube VGM community.
However, no one would have anticipated the monumental loss to come at the beginning of the month.
Aforementioned channel GilvaSunner, the most popular VGM channel for Nintendo music, was hit with over 2,200+ copyright strikes and blocks over the course of one day. On their twitter, GilvaSunner announced that, after receiving this big blow to their channel, that they’d be deleting it the following Friday.
Most fans were shocked. Other fans saw this coming from a mile away.
Senior Christian Galicia, an v gamer, said, “It was bound to happen eventually.”
Senior Jonah Oliver said something similar, “I’m frankly not surprised, considering Nintendo’s history with content creators, but it’s rather disappointing nonetheless.”
GilvaSunner’s channel had been around for more than a decade and has had previous kerfuffles with Nintendo before, but none as big as this. To see such a crucial member of the community go down, it sent a message to those following in GilvaSunner’s footsteps that Nintendo was finally putting its foot down.
“This isn’t the first time Nintendo has done mass copyright strikes on youtube and because of the uncertainty that it brings along with it, I’ve resorted to downloading my soundtracks instead.” Said Galicia. “They’re notorious for taking down anything that infringes on copyrights in the slightest.”
Despite this, there are still channels on Youtube that continue to upload rips of OSTs. Why is that?
“The problem isn’t that the channel was taken down by Nintendo for uploading their music; the problem is that Nintendo refuses to give people an official way to listen to their soundtracks. If their soundtracks were on streaming services worldwide, or even if they were officially uploaded on Youtube by Nintendo themselves, there would be no need for a GilvaSunner.” Said Oliver.
However, that isn’t the only problem.
Junior Sebastian Umpierre puts the problem of preservation into good perspective. “The circuit boards in game cartridges will eventually give out, disks will eventually be scratched into oblivion, and the internet isn’t as permanent as the adults in our life say it is.” Said Umpierre. “In order to have the generations to come learn about games and music past, we must have multiple archives of these files.”
“There’s a lot of frustration because at this point people are uploading these soundtracks just for the sake of preservation.” Said Galicia.
And it’s true! While Nintendo has recently released an official version of the Pokemon Shining Pearl and Brilliant Diamond Soundtrack, they haven’t provided the same treatment for the rest of their IPs.
“Nintendo seems to legitimately believe people use their consoles to listen to their music when that is emphatically not true. They’re well within their rights to take down uploads of their music, but it’s rather scummy to do so without giving people an official way to listen to their soundtracks.” Said Oliver
“The way it’s handled is still very flawed because it’s just going to be a cycle of reuploading and copyright striking until Nintendo gives us a way to listen to the music, whether it be streaming through Spotify or even selling individual soundtracks digitally.” Said Galicia.
It’s not just an issue when it comes to fan enjoyment either. The VGM community has a gold mine of potential for marketing and revenue.
“It feels like a dumb move on their part,” Said Umpierre. “Song rips on Youtube can be below-the-line marketing Nintendo doesn’t need to spend a cent on. Not only that, but they can also gain money by using Youtube’s copyright claim feature and actually profit from every stream. Instead they choose to burn bridges with their audience and lose potential customers by removing uploads of their soundtracks.”
That’s how this situation can be summarized: the burning of bridges.
Nintendo’s refusal to maximize profit and embrace online song rips is odd and even odder when they rarely put these same soundtracks on sale. Even then, they still continue to make bank on whatever music merchandise they DO release.
We may never know the company’s thought process, nor will we ever know if they’ll become more archive-friendly.
However, at the end of the day, Nintendo might never change their ways and continue to attack the VGM community with all they’ve got. The crackdown won’t cease so long as there are games that we play.
That is the bottom line in the relationship between company and community.