EarthBound YouTube Videos Keep Getting Flagged For Copyright By Sony

I’m sure Nintendo is losing sleep over this.

@SalvorHardin Actually, they should. It's their competition reaping profits off of Nintendo's content.

So it's just the music then. If Sony owns it, then it makes sense it's getting flagged. If you release a Mario playthrough and put a Beatles track over it, it will also get flagged. And yeah, I know the soundtrack is part of the game.

Nintendo should acquire the rights in that case. Otherwise all you can do is contact Sony and maybe they will make an exception to this track, though that obviously may also open floodgates they don't want to open.

Just remove the sound, problem solved.

Hold on, if Sony owns the copyright to the game’s music, is that stopping Nintendo from re-releasing the games? (Aside from the Wii U virtual console editions, which are now 6+ years old)

@gaga64 It's not stopping them (see Wii U VC), but probably means that both parties need to sign some stuff to make it happen. But it has happened before with the VC release, so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Sony copyrights what Nintendoesn’t.

Youtube has quickly become a soulless place of copyright wars, ridiculous censorship, and ad overloads. Let it die already.

so people fry nintendo for doing it and Sony gets a free pass?? no sorry . sony is just as bad. i cannot stand 2 faced hypocrites. go to push square and stay there.

It is owned by Sony, if they don't want people using it, that is up to them. I do think it is hypocritical how some are understanding for Sony doing this but flip out over Nintendo doing it.

Funny how this site always finds an excuse to write articles about earthbound despite there being no actual news that's really noteworthy like new games in development or mother 3 being localized. Keep that dead franchise alive i guess!

Now how about another F-zero article as long as we are beating dead horses!

I find it extremely hard to believe that Nintendo would actually hand over the music copyright of a game to Sony for good 🤔

I think they made a deal with Sony to distribute the CD soundtrack for a limited run only. Now Sony is going through their old library and uploading content IDs to YouTube and this soundtrack happened to be in the list.
I reckon it was done inadvertently, but at the same time they're not gonna review the actual copyright details unless Nintendo brings it up. They can just muscle YouTubers into submission until Nintendo bothers to investigate.

The music being published by Sony in 1989 must be a typo. Did they mean 1998 or were they talking about Earthbound Beginnings aka Mother on the NES?

@Zeldafan79 I mean, I'd say this is a pretty noteworthy story haha. It's the first time I've learned about Sony owning the music and everything, so I'd say it was pretty informative too.

@michellelynn0976 Depends on who you ask. I think Nintendo is absolutely in their right to shut fan-projects down for example. And they should if they want to maintain full control over their IP. If you allow one, you have to allow all of them.

Flagging copyright violations for an album that is long out of print and effectively impossible to purchase is just stupid.

@Bomberman64 The soundtrack pictured is from Mother, yes. But every song on it also appears in some form in Mother 2/Earthbound.

I assume random stuff like this is why games like EarthBound still aren't on SNES/NES Online?

Another example of Sony almost making a monopoly in the games industry. The other time was during the early 8th-gen competition, between the Wii U, PS4, and XB1 all using Blu-ray technology.

@shoeses not likely. People speculated endlessly this was why it never showed up on the Wii Virtual Console, and then it showed up on the Wii U and 3DS totally intact. Nintendo knows people want Earthbound. It's why they waited to put it on the VC & charged a premium for it, and sat on a fully translated rom of the first game for so long. They probably don't want to waste potential sales by tossing them onto the cheap online service.

@tntswitchfan68 You do realise Sony is more than Playstation?

Do your homework.

@Bomberman64 They published both the Mother 1 vocal CD and Mother 2 soundtrack when both games were new. So they do have rights to the Mother 2/EB music, as well.

@StarMetroid You do realize I said Sony. The music division is apart of Sony. Learn to read.

@StarMetroid I was talking about the Sony radicals who think Sony can do no wrong. Playstation is a brand of Sony. Grow up and learn to read. Use your brain and stop making excuses. Read my comments. Apparently, you do not know how to.

Well, that went south quickly.

@StarMetroid Adhom? That is what you started out on. Learning to read kn your 2st grade level. Isn't reading. Also, Sony PS division has copyrighted a lot of Youtubers. Let's see you do mental gymnastics on this one.

@StarMetroid Yeah, you are proof of that.

@Octane I agree.

@StarMetroid Oh grow up. He was making fun of Sony fans who make excuses for everything they do. Then as on Que, you show up. You are acting like a child. Get real.

@michellelynn0976 I’d suggest you take your own advice.

@StarMetroid i have more of an education than a five year old cry bag. grow the hell up. unlike you i am a real adult gamer. go back and play your 500 dollar doirstop the ps5 which still has no games. push square too boring for you?

@Prizm It's because the album was made for Earthbound Beginnings/Mother 1. they may not have thought it'd have been an issue at the time.

However it's came back now because the album featured some music that wasn't in Mother 1 but would end up used in Earthbound or is used across both games.

So Sony owns the rights to some of Earthbounds music through the Mother 1 OST.

@StarMetroid No, I am just being honest. You went off and acted like a triggered little troll. Grow up. Sony isn't some pro-consumer-friendly company. We all know how strict Nintendo is, but for people to think Sony isn't strict, that is ridiculous.

@Dr_Lugae Yes. Like it or not, Sony owns the music for Earthbound.

Sony is such a horrible company in 2021.

@StarMetroid Lol You need to look in the mirror. You are just trolling.

@StarMetroid Is that all you know to do is get upset and act like a childish troll?

@StarMetroid oh poor cry baby does not know what else to say? are you stuck on repeat.? does your pre school give you a nap time? I am through with you. I was not even talking to you. does your pre school not teach you manners? go back to playing your
ps5 . the switch is KILLING THAT PIECE OF JUNK. you are mad aren't you little boy? go ask your mommy for a hug. try to find some big boy pants. i only argue with SMART ADULT GAMERS. you waste my time little boy and you are not worth the waste. bye.

@tntswitchfan68 You keep proving me right. This is some incoherent rant only 10 years olds writes.

You have no point, no strong argument and no comeback. Man this is just sad lmao. Jesus christ.

@StarMetroid No, you kept acting like a childish troll. He said Sony and your triggered sensors went off. You acting like a little troll who can't make an argument, you went after his intelligence. I will start reporting your comments if you don't stop. Act like an adult.

@michellelynn0976 Report all you want. I don’t break any rules here. Besides you aren’t worth my time.

@StarMetroid Yet, you keep commenting. Last word troll. You could learn, but that is too much to ask for you. And, you did break some rules. He made a comment you didn't like, and you went off like a toddler throwing a temper tantrum.

@michellelynn0976 That’s some projection you’re doing now. You really got bothered by my comment lol.

@Karst that's actually really cool I never knew there were vocal version's

Like I said on discord and I will say it again It's Nintendo Game not Sony. Besides we'll just have to wait and see what Nintendo does.

Sony can sod off for all I care. Trolling turds.

Y'all also had to realize the Super NES console itself used the Sony sound chip too before PlayStation came into the picture. Be careful, Sony might claim to own those someday too, if that happens every music coming from any Super NES/Super Famicom game will easily be flagged.

If they have publishing rights of the music, they're entitled to do that.

Knowing just how much work that Chuggaconroy puts into his videos - the man is easily in the top 1% of hardest working and most dedicated YouTubers and that's simply not open for debate - I can't help but feel terrible for him.

While Sony, technically, is within their legal right to claim music to which they have publishing rights, this comes off as massively petty and greedy by them.

@tntswitchfan68 Lol

@StarMetroid You juat love proving her right. If she is not worth your time, why keep replying?

@tntswitchfan68 but I thought you were done wasting your time. Apparently you couldn’t stay away.

Also it’s “just” not “ juat”.

I made an Earthbound themed Mii Showcase video, so far it hasn't been flagged

https://youtu.be/-8VVkN_YKhg

Hmmm if Sony does own the music of Earthbound and Earthbound Beginnings, shouldn't Smash Bros. videos with Earthbound music be flagged, too?

Even if Nintendo gets the rights to it... they'll probably just do the same thing anyway.

@HammerGalladeBro Probably, a lot of music composer who work with Nintendo, Sega, and Microsoft also works with Sony too so if they recognize their work they will come after you for it.

God, this kind of thing is just so dumb. Unless it's someone literally playing just the OST then I don't agree with Sony [or the bot] being able to flag this stuff at all.

I know a lot of people like to harp on Youtube over stuff like this, and want Youtube to die. This isn't a only Youtube issue though. It's kinda a rights issue in media in general. It's why you would see a shiny laptop with a pear logo. The production company didn't get the right to use the Apple logo so they had to make their own up.

Earthbound has recorded changes that removed copy written logos when brought over to America. Capcom had issues with the Red Cross logo in Megaman Legends which kept them from putting on PSN for a while. Even a Youtuber I watch had to say he needed to get permission of a track he produced to talk about the process in a video. Even free and open source products can have license agreements on how you are allow to use it.

@Curbie Maybe they can release EarthBound & EarthBound Beginnings as a digital-only, pointlessly darkened, limited-time release like Fire Emblem then.

But if that's the case, any idea about random stuff that they wouldn't get sales off like StarTropics 2, Pinball, or that turd Urban Champion?

@Karst Isn't Chrono Trigger 100% a Square Enix game and IP though? I'm pretty sure that's completely different from something Nintendo made & owned.

Copyright is a f-ing joke as per usual.

@Karst Honestly from what I saw about the pixel perfect versions I would rather have those tbh. A fresher looking version without the bugs or regional changes that are closer to the original releases and not the rereleases.

@Karst It would he nice, but they are seemingly going to nuke those pc ports already on steam. So that's a win in my book.

Nintendo: I won't copyright this.

Sony: Allow me to introduce myself.

@Karst Problem with Square on Nintendo is they kinda halfass their releases. Unless it's a big FF game it will be digital only. Even stuff like FFX/X-2 the X-2 part is digital only and if you buy the cart used good luck getting X-2. Like Legend of Mana I love and wanted to get a cart to replace my stolen ps1 copy. So I have to import it in Switch.

@Karst At that point RCM would be less likely unless you get a Switch sold as such and pay up the nose. I know people who sold Vita's at a huge mark up because they where under the 3.60 firmware when that mattered. I would just do it on my PC at that point tbh. I do agree hardware being useable is a issue. I collected 80's PCs and between getting them power, hooked up to the tv, and dealing with hardware failures I just donated most of them to a tech museum.

Both digital and physical has ups and downs. I mostly only do physical on special cases, or if it's just flat out cheaper.

I've noticed that Sony has been cracking down on videos as of late, flagging them and claiming monetization. While Nintendo has been a bit more lax on the situation, pretty funny role reversal I suppose. Nintendo used to get huge flack for that, which I'm not seeing Sony get the same. (Where are the articles on major game websites like IGN? Where are the angry rants from Youtubers?)

Seems like everywhere you find Sony you will find toxicity these days.

That's a pretty smart strategy to remember for more competetive releases later.
Just as an example:
Let's say God of War realeases close to, I dunno, Starfield.
Would be a shame if Sony Music picked up the rights to the soundtrack and then banned all the videos on youtube..hmm?

I know, not a very realistic scenario but you get my idea.

I still find it bizarre that filming yourself playing video games is considered a piece of 'work'. Mind you, DJ's made a career from playing their records so what do I know lol.

@Karst Might I suggest a RG351? It uses Retroarch as the backend, but 351Elec makes it user friendly.

Also I have a nvidia shield with a 8bitdo to play retro stuff in my tv upstairs and a xbox series s downstairs.

they should if they want to maintain full control over their IP. If you allow one, you have to allow all of them.

@Octane I need to ask you, then: how is SEGA managing to allow Sonic fan games? I have yet to see anyone argue that they have lost the rights to Sonic.

If I wanted to make a video with gameplay of Earthbound, I'd delete the game's audio and replace it with different music.

@Dr_Lugae said "It's because the album was made for Earthbound Beginnings/Mother 1. they may not have thought it'd have been an issue at the time."

Are you speculating, or is there some additional proof that Sony actually now owns the copyright and not Nintendo?

These companies are always strong-arming copyright claims on YouTube where they don't always have the rights or when its hard for the uploader to prove otherwise.

I've had to fight Sony before on a copyright claim that they had no right to. They tried to tell me that they owned the copyright for the christmas carol Silent Night written in the 1800s. And no, it wasn't a version released on a Sony record, it was just a homemade version. My appeal was successful.

Just for clarification here. Sony Music is not Sony Interactive Entertainment. They're both part of the Sony Group, but Sony Music has no competition with Nintendo.

@COVIDberry One could argue it's to the benefit of the franchise. When the fan games are better than the official stuff, it's not that weird. But here's the thing. If someone were to release a Sonic fan game, and SEGA wanted to sue them, they'd have a lot more difficulty in court when the opposition can show they've allowed it before.

@Zeldafan79 it's a site dedicated to nintendo how often does nintendo do snything newsworthy

Sony made games for the SNES before they released the Playstation 1. They published many Nintendo soundtracks, even made the SNES soundchip and the Nintendo Playstation. They were partners.

The rivalry seems to calm down though. Sony published more than a dozen Switch games with their indie label Unties and managed events featuring Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

@Xiovanni Music being part of something doesn't impact implicit ownership of said music. If Nintendo doesn't own it, it's just like much of the music in any film or TV show. If this were about a movie clip with a full song by a well known band on YouTube, this wouldn't even be a news article.

I know how to fix this for future videos:

Step 1: MSU-1 the game.
Step 2: Scat the tunes into a mic.
Step 3: Apply magic filters with Audacity.
Step 4: Convert to the MSU-1 format.

Boom, solved.

@tntswitchfan68 Both Nintendo and Sony have every right to protect their products. Nintendo is protecting their IPs that they still use today. Metroid, Pokémon, and etc. Sony has the same right with music they own. People who whine and bitch about Nintendo doing copyright strikes are idiots. To me both get a free pass as they own the IPs or music.

Funny, Mother 2 almost did not get release due to the many references the game took... especially with sampling music and other sounds!

'content creators' no they are 'content repackagers' who don't want to acknowlege they really cant create anything on their own.

@GrailUK With people who do gaming videos like lets plays, they often spend a lot of time researching the games to ensure they know exactly what to talk about whilst playing, as well as a huge amount of editing time. At least as far as Chuggaaconroy is concerned (one of the effected parties in this situation), he has been known to spend hundreds of hours over the course of years to put in research before even starting to play a game to ensure he does the best job he can do. To compare it to DJs is a little bit of an understatement because DJs tend to play live (probably more akin to live streamers), so they don't have the work afterwards with editing.

I didn't know anything about this.

People should realize already the problems with pretty much all popular music in the world being owned by 4 companies, even music by artists like Mozart and Beethoven fall into this because the copyright to a composition and a recording are separate.

The solution: Copyright should only last 50 years like it used to, there are corporate bootlickers who defend that copyright should last forever and public domain should not exist, sure, copyright lasting 50 years would mean that soon, Mario would become a free character that anyone would be allowed to use without a permit from Nintendo, but it's a small price to pay, eventually, everyone would be legally allowed to make and sell their own Earthbound and F-Zero games.

Yeah, they reamed me too. It IS very disheartening, and frankly makes the brand look bad. I think they're greedy little ***** for trying to take someone's entire video for a 10sec snippet of a song from a game that they don't even own the rights to. I had a hiccup in my EB longplay, so to get that endgame footage I failed to capture, I did a grueling Speedrun. That was the first thing they slammed me on. Me, a no name creator who barely has 20subs and can't even monetize my channel yet 😂 I tried to use YouTube's special Mute feature, but it doesn't always work. It hits my video the hardest because I'm playing in Japanese and doing live translations.

@twadebarcelona Fait point mate

Kind of hard to feel sorry for streamers who make money off other people's content in the first place. You are getting paid to publically play a game that you don't even own.

@cammers1995 -

• You can't properly enjoy a videogame without actually playing it, sharing a recording of you playing a videogame is not the same thing as actually sharing the game, unless it's one of those interactive movies.
• Copyright laws have fair use, where you can use copyrighted content legally for purposes like reviewing, news reporting, education, and also parody.
• Most companies don't even care and know that people recording videogames and posting on the internet is free advertisement.

At first, I was confused why Sony of all companies would copyright strike a Nintendo video, then I realized that it’s because of the music and Earthbound uses samples of popular songs. Now it makes sense.

Sony needs to mind their own beeswax. If Nintendo wants it down, they'll do it. If they don't care if people have music up, then leave it be.

@Face76 I know, that is my point.

@StarMetroid The person you keep responding to. That is who I am. Grow up kid.

@Mountain_Man Incorrect, it keeps getting repressed to vinyl etc.

@StarMetroid bye little baby.