A popular Pokémon YouTuber has reported seeing his channel wiped out by copyright claims from Nintendo.
PokéNational Geographic creator Elious has said he’s received dozens of copyright strikes on his YouTube channel, claiming that his fan-made animations infringe on Nintendo’s characters and imagery.
The channel, which has been active since 2023 and amassed more than 100,000 subscribers, is widely known among Pokémon fans for its National Geographic-style shorts that show Pokémon species in their natural habitats. Narrated like a real-life nature documentary, these clips have spawned countless imitators, and feature Pokémon doing the kinds of things you don’t normally see in a Pokémon game: such as hunting and eating each other. Now, Elious’ work is being hunted — by Nintendo’s legal team.
“I have seven days until my channel is deleted. Nintendo of America has copyright striked so many of my videos,” Elious said in a video uploaded to another channel. “I can’t really fight this. It all seems legitimate, it does seem to come from the real Nintendo of America.”
Here’s an example from the channel, reuploaded by a fan to social media:
Come on PokèNational Geographic! pic.twitter.com/8Qat3VlXS9
— Yūto (@FatherShimada) December 6, 2023
YouTube operates with a three-strike system where copyright complaints can be contested, though second and third infractions result in your channel effectively being frozen while this process is ongoing.
“I don’t know what to do with it,” Elious continued. “I’m downloading stuff of course, I have all the videos myself but I’ll never be able to post them again. And I’ll never be able to use this channel again. Over 100,000 subscribers, over three years of making these animations, and it’s all going to be gone in seven days.”
Describing Nintendo’s copyright complaint in more detail, Elious said he had received warning that his video used content from “Pokémon video games, including the audio-visual works, characters and imagery.”
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“I’m not even perfectly sure what that means,” Elious countered. “Because every Pokémon-related YouTuber uses the visuals of Pokémon. I don’t use the video games — the most I use is the audio, the sprite-like roars, but that’s under three seconds and falls under fair use.”
Elious says his channel has helped him secure work and internships based off of his animation skills — which now all seem destined to go offline.
“I’ve worked on a lot of different projects that I’ve wanted to show people and talk about, and I want to make a lot of new stuff,” Elious said, in the conclusion of his video statement. “So I guess this is my chance in a way. But uh, I’ve been Elious of Elious Entertainment, and PokéNational is over. It’s over.”
IGN has asked Nintendo for comment.
Tom Phillips is IGN’s News Editor. You can reach Tom at tom_phillips@ign.com or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social
