The producer of the popular nursery rhyme 'Shark Family' (Baby Shark) won the first trial in a copyright lawsuit.
Seoul Central District Court Civil Civil 208 sole presiding judge Lee Jeong-kwon today (23rd) ruled that the plaintiff lost the lawsuit filed by American nursery rhyme composer Johnny Only (real name Jonathan Robert Wright) against Smart Study, a Korean company that created the shark family.
Shark Family is a children's song produced in 2015 by Smart Study, a startup that produces educational contents.
The dance video with this nursery rhyme (Baby Shark Dance) is currently gaining popularity, surpassing 9 billion cumulative views on YouTube, ranking first in history.
Johnny Only filed a lawsuit with a domestic court in March 2019, claiming that the shark family plagiarized the second work of a remake of his own nursery rhyme 'Baby Shark' released in 2011 with a unique rhythm to the oral nursery rhyme.
Smart Study arranges an oral nursery rhyme for the North American region and produces a shark family, so it has nothing to do with Johnny Only's work.
Oral nursery rhymes are not copyrighted, so copyright infringement is not recognized.
(Photo=Pinkfong official Facebook capture, Yonhap News)