South Korea's Supreme Court has rejected a US composer's allegation that the producers of the inescapably catchy children's song Baby Shark plagiarised his work, ending a six-year-long legal battle.
The court upheld two lower court verdicts that favoured Pinkfong, the South Korean company behind the tune with the "doo doo doo doo doo doo" refrain that has been streamed billions of times.
Jonathan Wright recorded a version of the tune in 2011 based on a children's folk song. Pinkfong's version was released in 2016.
Wright said he owned the copyright to the interpretation, but Pinkfong argued that its version was an arrangement of the same folk song, which is in the public domain.
The court ruled that Wright's version "had not reached a level of substantial alteration" from the original folk song for it to be considered a separate work, which means it is not protected as a separate piece of work under copyright law.
