Nintendo strikes and blocks YouTube videos for Breath of the Wild's multiplayer mod
The modding community for Breath of the Wild has been a popular topic and a new way to play the game ever since the release of the original back in 2017, from some meandering but funny mods like adding Waluigi as a model for Link, to mods adding entirely new content in the form of fanmade DLC "Second Wind", the game is being kept very much alive and fresh even 6 years after its original release.
However, Nintendo seems to think otherwise, and they don't like it when people play the game in forms they don't
This isn't the first time Nintendo does something like this, and most certainly (and sadly), this won't be the last time neither, as Nintendo is well known for their tyrannical use of the copyright system to bend their will, even when both modding and emulation are known to be completely legal as long as there's no direct piracy involved to run the games, and more so since the videos are of a transformative nature and fall under the legal "fair use" term.
These recent attacks from Nintendo to BotW modders seems to be related to the upcoming release of the BotW sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, releasing less than a month away in May 12th, so it seems to be a tactic of sorts to "protect" their IP brand from undesirable usage by them.
Some content creators, like PointCrow, have started to counter-claim these copyright claims by Nintendo, as stated directly through Twitter:
PointCrow said:
While the counter-claim can liberate the videos to be watched, they can still be claimed yet again by Nintendo, but this time with a lawsuit in hand, so it remains to be seen if Nintendo will actually continue pursuing this rather abusive use of the copyright system in their favour.
)