'Children's Song Baby Shark Plagiarism Lawsuit' Second Trial Also Won by Domestic Company

In the copyright lawsuit surrounding the popular children's song 'Sang-eo Gajok' (Baby Shark), a domestic company won again in the second trial.

On the 19th, the 8-1 Civil Appeal Division of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judges Yoon Woong-gi, Lee Won-jung, Kim Yang-hoon) ruled against American composer Johnny Only (real name Jonathan Robert Wright) in the damages claim appeal lawsuit filed against The Pinkfong Company (formerly SmartStudy), just as in the first trial.

Baby Shark is a children's song released in 2015 by the domestic education startup SmartStudy through the early childhood education content Pinkfong. Due to its highly catchy chorus, it gained immense popularity, even reaching the Billboard Hot 100 main singles chart in the United States. The dance video accompanying the song (Baby Shark Dance) currently holds the record for the most views on YouTube, surpassing 9 billion views.

In March 2019, Johnny Only filed a damages claim lawsuit in a domestic court, demanding 30.1 million KRW and delayed damages from June 29, 2018, claiming part of the damages he suffered due to copyright infringement. He alleged that the Baby Shark song plagiarized his 'Baby Shark,' a single album he arranged from a North American traditional camp song and released on iTunes in 2011.

SmartStudy argued that since they arranged a North American traditional folk song to create Sang-eo Gajok, it was unrelated to Johnny Only's work.

The first trial ruled in favor of SmartStudy. Based on the appraisal results from the Korea Copyright Commission, it was judged that the song created by Johnny Only did not exhibit new creativity distinct from the original traditional folk song and therefore could not be considered a derivative work.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.