First brought to the attention of the gamer community in a Facebook post by YouTube user Zack Scott, it has since been confirmed by Nintendo that the publisher is claiming ad revenue on user-created “Let’s Play” YouTube videos involving the company’s content.
A content ID match is issued by a publisher against a video and allows them to monetize said video with in-video ads, block it from certain countries or block the video globally. If a video is blocked worldwide, the YouTube channel it was uploaded from can lose its “good standing” and with it access to certain YouTube features.
Nintendo has since issued a statement to GameFront.
“As part of our on-going push to ensure Nintendo content is shared across social media channels in an appropriate and safe way, we became a YouTube partner and as such in February 2013 we registered our copyright content in the YouTube database,” the statement read, in part. “For most fan videos this will not result in any changes, however, for those videos featuring Nintendo-owned content, such as images or audio of a certain length, adverts will now appear at the beginning, next to or at the end of the clips.” The statement also said that this option was preferable to blocking all Nintendo content on intellectual property infringement grounds.
(via GameFront)