Постер The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, через яку виникла суперечка / Nintendo
YouTuber Beats Fake Nintendo Lawyer — Scammer Filed Phony DMCA Claims
Nintendo is known for protecting its copyrights on YouTube. Google often removes videos related to its content. Turns out, it’s important to check even those claiming infringement.
YouTuber Domtendo, aka Dominik Neumayer, managed to win a dispute against a fake Nintendo lawyer. The latter targeted his channel and provoked deletions supposedly in defense of copyrights. This could have led to the channel’s closure if Domtendo had received another warning.
The German vlogger has been streaming popular game sessions for 17 years. The story began with the removal from YouTube of several of his videos The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. This happened after two complaints, supposedly according to the American “Digital Millennium Copyright Act” (DMCA), which resulted in two warnings.
Neumayer was stunned by the prospect of losing his channel. He knew that most gaming companies consider “Let’s Play” videos, which he published for free, as advertisement rather than a threat to their business. Nintendo is strict on YouTube, but also usually didn’t remove similar videos. The risk of losing channels and their income provokes YouTubers to delete their own content, rather than defend it.
Neumayer carefully studied the removal requests before making any decisions on the claims. He noticed that the requests were signed “Tatsumi Masaaki, Legal Department Nintendo, Nintendo of America”, but the second request came from a personal account at Proton tatsumi-masaaki@protonmail.com.
The blogger began an investigation. This almost immediately led to the restoration of his videos. But the victory was short-lived, as the fake Nintendo lawyer only intensified his demands and threatened the YouTuber to delete the videos. Direct contact with Nintendo helped solve the problem.
Neumayer found that a patent lawyer with a similar name works for Nintendo in Japan, although he couldn’t say whether this was the person sending the demands. Nintendo did not confirm whether Tatsumi Masaaki exists.
Only Neumayer’s direct contact with Nintendo allowed him to get some information. The company responded that the email address of the fake lawyer “is not a legitimate Nintendo email address, and the details contained in the message do not match the practices of Nintendo of America Inc.”
Nintendo promised to conduct further investigation as Neumayer continued to receive demands. About a week after Nintendo’s response, “Tatsumi” wrote to Neumayer: “With this, I retract all my previous claims.” But even then, the troll did not give up. His latest messages state that he only suspended the complaints, and that other Nintendo lawyers will refile them. Then he sent a new letter with threats, using a publicly available web tool to forge an official Nintendo email address.
Despite the positive resolution of the story, Neumayer and other YouTubers, who were targeted by the fake lawyer, remain disappointed with YouTube’s behavior. Neumayer believes that the streaming platform needs to update its policy and make it easier for users to protect content from wrongful claims.
“Any idiot can hit any YouTuber, and do it almost without hassle. It’s madness. This needs to change NOW,” says Neumayer.
Sources: The Verge, Ars Technica