Nintendo is well-known for the aggressive protection of its brands, and the YouTuber behind the popular series of “PokeNational Geographic” videos claims to be on the receiving end of copyright strikes from the company.
According to the creator of the video series, Elious, his channel has been hit with dozens of copyright strikes by Nintendo of America, and he only has a few days left until it is deleted. Because of the multiple strikes issued against 20 of his videos and YouTube’s three-strikes policy, the channel is set to be deleted from the platform in a week. As for the videos in question, Elious has been producing short nature documentaries featuring Pokemon, using original custom-made animations.
“I have seven days until my channel is deleted,” Elious explained in a video on a different channel. “Nintendo of America has copyright striked so many of my videos. They’ve done it multiple times now, within the span of 12 hours. “I’m downloading stuff of course–I have all the videos myself–but I’ll never be able to post them again. And I’ll never be able to use this channel again. Over 100,000 subscribers, over three years of making these animations, and it’s all going to be gone in seven days.”
What might have caught Nintendo’s legal eye are two things: the audio from these videos, as they use the sprite-like roars of Pokemon–which Elious said are under three seconds and fall under fair use–and the formation of a Patreon to allow fans to financially support the creation of new videos. The creator is willing to take down the videos to appease Nintendo, but he’s lamenting the fact that he’ll be losing a channel that he spent years growing.
“I’ve been Elious of Elious Entertainment, and PokeNational is over. It’s over.”
Nintendo has taken on several YouTubers in the past, although these videos have been focused on piracy and livestreaming the company’s games before they were officially released. In late 2024, Nintendo cracked down on YouTube channels that demonstrated games running on emulators, and a YouTuber who uploaded high-quality Nintendo soundtracks was issued thousands of copyright strikes against their channel and eventually closed it.