Legal Battle Over Baby Shark Rules The Song As Not Plagiarized

Music

Aug 17

Baby shark doo doo doo doo doo doo….

You’ve heard it, I’ve heard it, everyone on the planet has heard it. As someone with kids, I’ve heard it a lot. The song itself is a lot older than you think. It originated in the 70s at summer camps, but it wasn’t until the 2010s that it became the ultra hit that children love and parents… do not. Given that it was a summer camp song, it was in public domain, meaning that anyone can use it.

Or turn the character into a slasher icon. I mean, why not?

In any case, the definitive version is from the South Korean entertainment company Pinkfong. It’s the one you’ve seen on YouTube, and it’s far and away the most-watched video on the platform, racking up a staggering 16 billion views. However, songwriter Jonathan Wright felt that they ripped off of him, as he felt that Pinkfong plagiarized a unique arrangement that he’d made in 2011. Pinkfong, in turn, insisted that their arrangement was different enough, and the Supreme Court in South Korea agreed with the latter, ruling that "it had not reached a level of substantial alteration." It does tend to be difficult to prove plagiarism of a work based on a piece of public domain media.

With the ruling, Wright is out of luck here. There’s nobody higher up that he can go to. And we parents are out of luck, too. It will keep going. The song will always keep going. Forget Thanos, Baby Shark is the real inevitable one.

READ NEXT:

Featured