- Nintendo is working hard to pull videos from YouTube of Super Mario World levels that don’t contain any input from human players

- Nintendo appears to be aiming at “tool-assisted speedruns.”

- these speedruns are facilitated by ROMs, or backups of the original title that can be found on popular gaming websites, or passed from one person’s computer to the other

- it appears that the Nintendo is taking issue on copyright as speedruns don't include the original cartridges or original online products.

- a look at the gaming giant’s website shows that it is “illegal to download and play a Nintendo ROM” on the Internet, and that players may have optimistically misconstrued reports about how “backup copies” are legal for those who own the original versions

- Boston Globe, noted speedrunner Alex Losego points to the possibility that recently released Super Mario Maker may be a catalyst in Nintendo's pulling speedruns away from YouTube, he said:

“I think it is stupid of them to go after (time-assisted speedruns), but then again they have every right to do so,” he said. “And yes, I think this has everything to do with Super Mario Maker being released recently.

“Seeing how the game is a great hit, my guess is that they don’t want people to stumble upon videos that cross the fuzzy legal line (TASes, hacks, etc.) when they search for the new game. I wouldn’t be surprised if this ‘attack’ is only temporary — take down videos in between the game’s release and this holiday season (the time where most copies of Super Mario Maker will be sold).”

- Boston Glober argues that speedrunners have been instrumental in pushing the relevance of classic games and introducing them to younger gamers.

- Writer Jesse Singal opined that the issue is a “classic case of corporate culture versus Internet culture,” where the former is against the above mentioned forms of hacking, while the latter believes that there is a greater good being done through speedruns and such.  He concluded by calling the initiatives as “petty” on Nintendo’s part, adding that the company is “not getting it” with regards to the benefits of speedrunning.

http://www.modernreaders.com/nintendo-cracks-down-on-super-mario-speedruns-on-youtube/31411/lorenzo-tanos

That is very disappointing. While I do realize that those video will likely damage the sales of Virtual Console Mario titles, but at same time, how many sales this move will get? 20?

I'm not going to pretend that those video are foundation of Mario franchise's popularity, but I can't deny that many automated Mario videos are highly entertaining, and is a major drive for dilating irrelevancy of older video game, something that Nintendo could use to push other game than Mario,

Just...

Why, Nintendo?

WOW.... They deserve all the poor sales are getting with the Wii U. This is shocking.

This was already posted, I think.

Yeah, like how Atlus deserves bad sales because they copyright every Persona 5 trailer not on their channel!

I recall instances where threads have been created here when Nintendo takes down videos from YouTube. I don't know if one was created regarding this particular allegations though.

i dont agree with nintendo youtube policy but yeah these TAS speedruns need to go.

I don't disagree there :P

Do "Let's Play" channels on YouTube have to pay Nintendo a fee or something in order to post their play throughs online? Cause I see popular ones like GameGrumps doing a series on Mario Maker and LOZ A Link Between Worlds right now for example, whereas other popular YouTubers like Angry Joe have complained about Nintendo pulling videos that feature Nintendo games or products.