Beijing Olympics song removed by YouTube after copyright complaints

YouTube has removed an official song for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics due to “multiple third-party” complaints of copyright infringement.

The song, called “The Ice and Snow Dance”, had come under fire after various reports and YouTube users said it sounded too similar to “Let it Go”, a song featured in Disney’s 2013 hit film “Frozen”.

Instead of showing the video, a YouTube search for the Olympics song now displays a notice stating that the “YouTube account associated with this video has been terminated due to multiple third-party notifications of copyright infringement”.

Beijing was chosen as the host city for the 2022 games last week. The song is one of ten chosen by the Chinese Olympic Committee to represent the games.

But, as WIPR reported, after it was uploaded the song was hit with an avalanche of criticism from some YouTube users, who claimed it was a direct copy of Disney’s song.

China-based news publication Caijing published the view of one critic, who said “some notes are almost the same as the opening line of ‘Let it Go’ and the only difference is the tempo”.

It is unclear from the YouTube notice who requested that the video be taken down.

WIPR asked Disney whether it requested that the song be removed but the company had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.

The Chinese Olympic Committee has also yet to respond, but we will update the story should it get in touch.