Nintendo has always had a very strained relationship with YouTube, as the company has often found issues with people making money from its properties. Nintendo has slowly become more accepting of creators making videos featuring its games, however, the company recently decided to crack down on a multitude of videos.
Nintendo was originally entirely unhappy with content creators profiting off of making content that featured Nintendo properties. This is what led the company to end up establishing the Nintendo Creators Program. The program, which has since been dissolved, previously forced content creators to enter into a contract and share their profits with the company.
As expected, this did not sit well with both content creators and Nintendo fans, who thought that the system was constricting and unfair to the creators. The company then instead decided to set guidelines that creators needed to follow, which were that any videos or images that were copies of Nintendo Game Content without creative input were not permitted. The guidelines also stated that only Nintendo-approved gaming tournaments were allowed to be streamed and uploaded.
Nintendo has recently taken down over 1300 videos on YouTuber GilvaSunner's channel. This is not the first time that Nintendo has issued copyright claims to YouTuber's making use of its game's music. GilvaSunner's channel had previously been hit with copyright claims, although none of his videos were taken down at the time these claims were issued. Nintendo has now finally able to follow through and remove many of the YouTubers' videos. In response to this, GilvaSunner stated that he does not monetize the videos of the Nintendo game soundtracks that he posts and only posts them to YouTube, as there is currently no other way to listen to the soundtracks without playing the games themselves.
It is unlikely that the company will restore GilvaSunner's videos as Nintendo is incredibly strict with regards to its content creation guidelines. The YouTuber stated that, while he understands why the company removed his videos, he hopes that Nintendo will place its soundtracks on music streaming services in the future. This will give the masses access to these soundtracks while also generating more revenue for Nintendo.
In the past, Nintendo has even gone as far as to copyright claim Minecraft videos featuring the Wii U version of the game if the video contained any depiction of the exclusive Super Mario themed DLC. Nintendo has made no mention of its soundtracks being placed on music services, and unfortunately, it is unlikely that this will be the event to encourage them to do so.