‘Baby Shark’ faces with lawsuit

By Revia Mae E. Sibal

Who hasn’t heard the viral children’s song “Baby Shark”? The catchy English version of the said song that caught the public’s attention all over the world has already reached roughly 2.27 billion views on YouTube as of February 1.

Stepping up a notch from its place in Billboard, the song landed on the 36^th for the week of February 2. It has been keeping its place on the Hot 100 for four weeks now since entering the chart on second week of January.

Pinkfong, a children’s education entertainment brand by SmartStudy, released “Baby Shark” in 2015. Since then, it created a surge of parodies among the public which was eventually adapted by celebrities, locally and internationally.

The story of the song isn’t entirely happy as it faced several legal combats.

Liberal Korea Party used the song while campaigning for the 2018 regional election.

SmartStudy then accused the party of copyright infringement and was about to take legal actions. However, the party opposed and claimed that SmartStudy was plagiarizing an American Children Song entitled “Baby Shark Song” by composer, Johnny Only.

The company denied the allegation by claiming that they had prior consent from Only.

After several months, the American composer filed a claim in a South Korean court for damages and demands the chief of SmartStudy to pay 5 million won (US$4,476) as compensation for the copyright of his song.

SmartStudy again dismissed the claim stating that the song was a recreation of a traditional children’s song therefore has no valid copyrights.

The initial schedule for the court hearing was last January 31 but Johnny Only’s side dropped the lawsuit on to file a civil suit again to demand a bigger compensation.