Baby Shark song does not flout copyright, says court

A court has dismissed a copyright claim by an American composer who accused a South Korean children's publisher of plagiarism in its version of the catchy children's song “Baby Shark”, which became a worldwide hit.

- SHAHANA YASMIN

New York-based composer Jonathan Wright sought 30 million won (about £16,000), claiming that the 2015 rendition of “Baby Shark” by South Korean education startup Pinkfong, previously known as SmartStudy, was a plagiarised copy of a song he had released in 2011.

However, the court upheld rulings from 2021 and 2023 stating that Wright's version of the song - which had circulated in the US for decades as a campfire chant or children's singalong - wasn't original enough to warrant copyright protection.

“In the case of a new song based on a preexisting one, one needs to add sufficient revision for it to be socially accepted as a new work, in order for it to be protected as a copyrighted material,” the court said, according to The Korea Herald. “Minor changes added to the original material cannot be considered an original creative work, and thus cannot be protected by the copyright law.”