A children’s song ‘Baby Shark’ has made it to UK top 40 charts but it is at the centre of a row over sexism and alleged breach of copyright in South Korea. Created by SmartStudy, a South Korean video and education company that controls the Pinkfong brand, the video has been watched by over 1.65 billion viewers on YouTube. In January, a local newspaper condemned the lyrics in the Korean-language version of the song. The version of the song in its native South Korea brands the mummy shark as ‘pretty’ and the daddy shark as ‘strong’.

In a front-page editorial, the Kyunghyang Shinmun newspaper said the lyrics reinforce sexist prejudices. While the English lyrics merely list the members of the shark family, The Korea Herald reported, the Korean version describes Mummy Shark as ‘pretty’, Daddy Shark as ‘strong’, Grandma Shark as ‘kind’ and Grandpa Shark as ‘Cool’. And in May the song was adopted by the right-wing Liberty Korea Party during local elections, triggering threats of legal action for copyright infringement from SmartStudy.

Video of 'Baby Shark' Song

The political party hit back saying that the song was originally a folk song and insisted they had permission to use it from Johnny Only, a performer of children’s songs in television, who owns the copyright to a version that he released in 2012. According to reports, SmartStudy is also involved in a copyright complaint with Johnny Only, who has filed a claim in a Seoul court claiming that the latest version is too like his song. The tune has swept the world and even sparked its own challenge akin to the Kiki Challenge which sprung up around Drake’s In My Feelings tune.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 05, 2018 07:36 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).