YouTube king Felix ‘PewDiePie‘ Kjellberg called out China for a questionable copyright filing with his name, after the country banned his content on October 19.
With over 101 million subscribers on YouTube, PewDiePie is without a doubt one of the biggest entertainers in the world, as his channel has a major reach globally. The Swede’s content mainly centers around his reactions and commentary to memes, as well as his Minecraft series which blew up in 2019, making the game popular again.
However, the Swede announced that his content had been banned in China on October 19, after he reacted to a meme comparing the country’s leader to Winnie the Pooh. Now, the YouTube star is hitting back, revealing the country “stole” his brand in a bizarre copyright filing he discovered in 2017.
PewDiePie calls out China
A day after the YouTube star revealed that his content had been banned in China, the Swede posted on Twitter that the country had filed a copyright on his name in 2017 for a truly bizarre product, and said that he had not been able to fight it.
“China took copyright of PewDiePie in 2017 without me being able to stop them anyway,” he tweeted, while also acknowledging a rather weird product also included in the filing. “They can’t sell any more PewDiePie wedding dresses now lol.”
China took copyright of Pewdiepie in 2017 without me being able to stop them anyway, guess they can't sell any more pewdiepie wedding dresses now lol pic.twitter.com/EkdWR63bYW
— ƿ૯ωძɿ૯ƿɿ૯ (@pewdiepie) October 20, 2019
The tweet included a picture of the copyright filing, and it was strangely used to take his brand and apply it to wedding dresses. The original file date was on August 2016, and was done in Shanghai China.
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The file also listed gloves as an accessory – who wouldn’t want PewDiePie themed wedding attire? While it states that the Swede had until October 2017 to object to it, his tweet indicated that he tried and was unable to put a stop to it.
During his October 18 upload when revealed that his content had been banned, the Swede said, “I’m laughing, but yeah I’m sorry if you are in China, and try to watch my videos. That kind of sucks. It’s just kind of funny.”
Still seeing humor in the situation, the YouTube king took another shot at China, by following up his previous tweeting with a link and promotion code to NordVPN – a virtual private network that allows users to bypass restrictions in their country to view banned content – and said “keep the internet open and free” alongside a devil emoji.
Well now is a good time as ever to promote https://t.co/bboVTwm1y8 :point_left:keep the internet open and free from ban regulatios :smiling_imp:. Use code pewdiepie for a free month. #ad
— ƿ૯ωძɿ૯ƿɿ૯ (@pewdiepie) October 20, 2019
Despite his content being banned in one of the biggest markets in the world, it doesn’t seem to have phased the Swede very much, as he seemed more amused by it then anything else.
The YouTube star is still having the best year of his life, hitting the 100 million subscriber milestone on August 25, marrying his best friend Marzia ‘CutiePie’ Bisognin just a few days prior, and recently buying a house in Japan, which they announced on September 30.