Nintendo crushes fan-favorite game music YouTube channel with thousands of copyright claims

The creator of the YouTube channel “GilvaSunner” will close shop on Friday, after Nintendo issued a wave of copyright claims on their videos. The YouTube channel was home to hundreds of songs from video game soundtracks, including many from Nintendo games. According to the creator, who goes by GilvaSunner, the channel received over 2,200 “copyright blocks” on Tuesday.

“I’ve decided that at this point it’s really not worth it to keep the channel up any longer,” GilvaSunner said in a tweet on Tuesday. “I know this is disappointing to read for a lot of you, but I hope you can respect my decision to want to move on at this point.” Polygon reached out to GilvaSunner for comment and will update the article as we hear back.

GilvaSunner’s YouTube channel has been an important resource for fans who want to listen to their favorite video game soundtracks online. At time of publication, GilvaSunner had amassed over 1,552,000,000 views. The channel was an especially popular place to go listen to music from classic Nintendo games, which typically aren’t available for streaming on platforms like Spotify.

The creator has had a long history with copyright takedowns. In 2019, their channel was hit by another wave of takedowns for the soundtracks of games like Super Mario 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and Mario Kart Wii. To help keep the libraries alive, the YouTuber created multiple YouTube channels with alternate names like “SilvaGunner,” and reuploaded the soundtracks.