Sep 14, 2021

Youtube Quits Coco Melon rival Super Jojo channel with 22 million subscribers

Last month, Youtube deleted the children's animation channel Super Jojo citing that they had “received multiple third-party claims of copyright infringement.” At the time of its deletion, the channel had approximately 22 million subscribers and was among the top 25 animation channels on the platform.

The removal of the channel happened around the same time that the producers of Cocomelon, the most-subscribed animation channel on Youtube, filed a complaint in California federal court accusing the Chinese company behind Super Jojo of “blatantly copying Cocomelon.”

Cocomelon is owned by London-based Moonbug Entertainment and produced through Moonbug subsidiary Treasure Studio, which is headquartered in Irvine, California. Moonbug and Treasure Studio claim that Super Jojo has ripped off hundreds of characters, settings, song titles, lyrics, and images in its videos. One example from Cocomelon's legal filing is the screengrab at top from Cocomelon's “The Boo Boo Song” (left) and Super Jojo's version of the same song (right).

“Super Jojo shamelessly freerides on Cocomelon's success by closely copying and exploiting every possible element of the Cocomelon channel,” Moonbug said in its complaint. “Even Cocomelon fans remark with amazement how pervasively 'Super Jojo rips off CoComelon!! Sometimes even frame by frame!'” (The entire complaint, which includes details on how Superjojo tried to evade YouTube's copyright policies, can be viewed here.)

Babybus (Fujian) Network Technology Company, the Chinese company behind Super Jojo, reported revenue in excess of $100 million last year, according to Cocomelon's complaint. The largest part of its income is derived from online advertising on platforms like the Google-owned Youtube. Babybus announced in July that it was planning to list as a public company in Hong Kong with the goal of raising $285.8 million.

In addition to its ownership of Cocomelon, Moonbug also operates numerous other leading Youtube channels for children's content including Little Baby Bum, My Magic Pet Morphle, and Blippi.

News of Cocomelon's legal action against Super Jojo was first reported by Law360.com.