Did You Know Gaming’s video on a canceled Zelda game has been restored on YouTube. In early December, Nintendo filed a copyright strike against the video about Heroes of Hyrule, an attempted tactics spinoff for the developer’s long-running franchise that never saw the light of day.
Shane Gill, who founded the popular game history website, confirmed on Twitter that Nintendo filed the DMCA takedown against the group’s video. He explained that Nintendo had 10 days to take legal action against Did You Know Gaming, otherwise the video would be restored. Since no legal action was ever taken, the video got to go back up.
On the first day of its return, the video received over 20,000 YouTube views. Beyond Nintendo’s abrupt takedown of the video, the publisher’s general secrecy of its projects definitely played a hand in the new view count.
“We won,” tweeted Did You Know Gaming’s Twitter account. “The Heroes of Hyrule video is back up.”
Heroes of Hyrule was initially pitched by Retro Studios in the late 2000s. As part of the video, the popular YouTube group interviewed former Retro programmer Paul Touzour and sourced the game’s 22-page pitch document. Nintendo had reportedly become aware and “upset” of the team’s digging into this game’s history.
After the initial takedown, the video’s creator Dr. Lava said that he was considering legal consultation. The group as a whole criticized Nintendo for “silencing whatever journalism they don’t like.”
Gill added that Nintendo’s claim against the video was about using “unauthorized material,” but he argued that Did You Know Gaming acquired the pitch document legally, and it was all presented in compliance with fair use rules. “Their intent was to scrub this piece of journalistic work from the internet because they didn’t like what it uncovered,” he wrote.
At time of writing, Nintendo hasn’t provided a comment or any other action on the matter.