South Korea’s Supreme Court Dismisses US Composer’s Copyright Claim Over Baby Shark Song

South Korea’s Supreme Court has rejected a copyright infringement claim brought by US composer Jonathan Wright against Pinkfong, the South Korean company behind the viral children’s song Baby Shark. The ruling upholds two lower court decisions in favor of Pinkfong, concluding that Wright failed to demonstrate that Pinkfong’s version unlawfully copied his work.

Baby Shark, released by Pinkfong in 2016, became a global phenomenon, spawning television shows, movies, and mobile applications. The Baby Shark Dance video is currently the most viewed video on YouTube, with over 16 billion views—nearly twice the views of the second most popular video, "Despacito" by Luis Fonsi featuring Daddy Yankee.

In 2019, Wright, known professionally as Johnny Only, filed a lawsuit in Seoul alleging that Pinkfong’s Baby Shark plagiarized his earlier rendition of the song. Wright’s version, uploaded to YouTube in 2011, featured the iconic "doo doo doo doo doo doo" refrain accompanied by simple hand gestures mimicking a shark’s mouth.

Pinkfong’s versions, uploaded in 2015 and 2016, included animated sharks singing in Korean and later an English-language version with choreographed dances that incorporated similar shark mouth hand movements. Pinkfong contended that their adaptation was an arrangement of a traditional children’s song believed to be in the public domain.

The origins of Baby Shark trace back to the United States in the 1970s, where it circulated as a campfire song with darker lyrics involving a shark attack. Some speculate the song emerged around 1975, coinciding with the release of Steven Spielberg’s film "Jaws." Other international versions, such as the French "Bébé Requin" and the German "Kleiner Hai," predate Wright’s video and gained regional popularity.

Despite the song’s long history, Pinkfong’s adaptation achieved unprecedented commercial success, including viral social media trends like the #BabySharkChallenge and reaching number 32 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Wright initially believed the song was public domain and that Pinkfong could freely use it. However, he pursued legal action after learning Pinkfong had threatened to sue a South Korean political party, the opposition People Power, for using Baby Shark in a campaign. Wright questioned whether his version might hold copyright protection if Pinkfong asserted rights over the song.

He argued that Pinkfong’s version bore striking similarities to his, citing identical key, tempo changes, melody, and rhythm. Wright sought 30 million won (approximately $22,000) in damages.

The Supreme Court’s analysis focused on whether Wright’s version constituted a "secondary work" that merited copyright protection and whether Pinkfong’s song was derived from Wright’s rendition. The court found that Wright’s modifications did not reach the threshold of originality required to qualify as a separate copyrighted work.

Furthermore, even assuming Wright’s version was a derivative work, the court determined there were no substantial similarities between Pinkfong’s Baby Shark and Wright’s version that would support a claim of infringement.

This ruling conclusively ends the six-year legal dispute, affirming Pinkfong’s rights to its widely recognized Baby Shark adaptation and underscoring the challenges of asserting copyright claims over traditional or folk works that have evolved over decades.