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...
