The owner of popular kids YouTube channel CoComelon convinced a jury to award it $23.4 million from Chinese competitor BabyBus Co. Ltd. for ripping off its videos.
Moonbug Entertainment Ltd. accused BabyBus of creating Super JoJo songs that were in some cases virtually frame-by-frame copies of CoComelon songs, in its lawsuit in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. Babybus conceded that it infringed seven CoComelon works before trial, but contested alleged infringement of 35 other works.
The jury found that BabyBus willfully infringed “dozens” of Moonbug’s copyrights, the Cocomelon owner’s law firm, Tyz Law Group PC, said in a press release. The jury’s award includes "$17.6 million in actual damages and disgorged profits, as well as $5.8 million in statutory damages electible in the alternative,” the firm said.
UK-based Moonbug acquired CoComelon, which has 162 million subscribers, in 2020. The next year, two former Disney executives bought Moonbug, which also owns a variety of other YouTube kids programming including Blippi and Little Baby Bum, for $3 billion.
BabyBus, founded in 2009, started its Super JoJo channel in 2019, and it now has 24 million subscribers. Moonbug and CoComelon creator Treasure Studio Inc. filed their August 2021 lawsuit months before the Blackstone-backed acquisition.
The 2022 amended complaint said Super JoJo was built by “blatantly copying CoComelon,” and cited “striking similarity” in the “freeriding” channel’s “characters, settings, song titles, lyrics, and/or images, among other things.” Both channels feature animated families of five including a baby—J.J. in CocoMelon and JoJo in Super JoJo—and an array of nursery rhymes and songs for toddlers.
Moonbug pointed out examples of identical or nearly identical songs, characters, and “frame-by-frame” animation. BabyBus argued many of the elements Moonbug sought to protect were unoriginal or inherent features in the genre.
Tyz Law Group and Horvitz & Levy LLP represent Moonbug. Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP represents Babybus.
The case is Moonbug Entm’t Ltd. v. Babybus Network Tech. Co., N.D. Cal., No. 21-6536, verdict 7/27/23.
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