Ruling upheld that there was insufficient evidence of copyright infringement on song that is YouTube’s most viewed video
South Korea’s supreme court has rejected a US composer’s allegation that the producers of the catchy children’s song Baby Shark plagiarised his work, ending a six-year-long legal battle.
The court upheld two lower court verdicts in favour of Pinkfong, the South Korean company behind the tune with the famous “doo doo doo doo doo doo” refrain.
The Pinkfong song, released in 2016, has been phenomenally successful: it has spawned spinoff TV shows, movies and smartphone apps, making the company millions. Today, the Baby Shark Dance video is the most viewed on YouTube, with more than 16bn views, roughly double those of the runner-up, Despacito by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee, and third-placed Wheels on the Bus by the children’s YouTube channel Cocomelon.
In 2019, the children’s songwriter Jonathan Wright – known as Johnny Only – filed a lawsuit in Seoul, claiming Pinkfong copied his earlier version of the original song, which is thought to have been around for more than five decades.
