CoComelon Lawsuit: BabyBus Copyright Verdict and $23.4M Award

The CoComelon lawsuit was a copyright infringement case in which Moonbug Entertainment and Treasure Studio, the owners of the CoComelon children’s YouTube channel, sued Chinese digital content company BabyBus for copying their characters, songs, and videos through a rival channel called Super JoJo. A federal jury in California awarded Moonbug $23.4 million after finding BabyBus willfully infringed 39 copyrighted works, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed that judgment on November 6, 2025.¹

Who Sued Whom

Moonbug Entertainment, the London-based owner of CoComelon, and Treasure Studio, the Irvine, California company that originally built the channel, filed the suit on August 24, 2021, in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The case was assigned to Senior District Judge Edward M. Chen as Case No. 21-cv-06536-EMC.²

The defendants were BabyBus (Fujian) Network Technology Co. and BabyBus Co., Ltd., a Fuzhou-based children’s content company whose Super JoJo YouTube channel had roughly 22 million subscribers before YouTube terminated it after receiving multiple third-party copyright claims.³ The complaint accused BabyBus of “blatantly copying CoComelon” and alleged infringement of hundreds of characters, songs, settings, and videos.

What BabyBus Was Accused of Copying

The complaint identified specific works with registered copyright numbers, including “The Boo Boo Song,” “Yes Yes Vegetable Song,” “Bath Song,” “Car Wash Song,” and “Yes Yes Playground Song.” Moonbug alleged frame-by-frame copying of graphics, camera angles, character movements, plot structures, and event sequences.² The central claim was that BabyBus’s “JoJo” character was a near-replica of CoComelon’s baby “JJ.”

Before trial, BabyBus conceded it had infringed seven of Moonbug’s works, leaving 35 more for the jury to decide, on top of works added by amendment.⁴ At trial, BabyBus’s own designers acknowledged referencing CoComelon works. One designer conceded he had used JJ to design JoJo, other witnesses admitted “some plagiarism” in specific shots and sequences, and internal instructions had directed the production team to make Super JoJo episodes nearly identical to CoComelon’s.⁵

BabyBus did not deny the two shows looked alike. Its defense was that the shared elements were generic conventions of children’s animation and therefore not protectable.⁶

The Verdict and $23.4 Million Award

The trial began on July 5, 2023, and ran roughly three and a half weeks. On July 27, 2023, the jury returned a verdict finding BabyBus had willfully infringed 39 of the 42 copyrights Moonbug asserted at trial. The jury went beyond the “substantially similar” standard and found JoJo to be “virtually identical” to JJ.⁷

The total award was $23.4 million: $17.6 million in actual damages and disgorged profits, with $5.8 million in statutory damages available as an alternative election.⁴ The jury also found BabyBus liable for trademark infringement of the Super JoJo brand and for misrepresentation.⁸

The DMCA Counter-Notification Finding

The jury unanimously found that BabyBus had violated Section 512(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by knowingly submitting fraudulent counter-notifications to YouTube claiming its videos had been removed by mistake. This was reportedly the first time a jury reached such a finding under the DMCA, and it added $10,000 in damages.⁹ Evidence at trial showed a BabyBus executive admitted there was no good-faith basis for one of the counter-notifications, filed shortly after the company had already conceded willful infringement of the work in question.⁵

Earlier in the case, BabyBus had tried to turn the DMCA against Moonbug. In February 2022, Judge Chen dismissed BabyBus’s own Section 512(f) counterclaims, finding Moonbug’s takedown notices were supported by a 17-page letter and 80 pages of exhibits establishing “facially plausible claims of infringement.”¹⁰

Why JJ Got Strong Copyright Protection

A key legal question was how much protection the JJ character deserved. Under copyright law, highly original characters get “thick” protection, meaning a plaintiff needs to show only “substantial similarity.” Characters built from a narrow range of standard elements get “thin” protection, which requires the accused work to be “virtually identical.”

BabyBus argued that an animated baby is inherently limited by human anatomy and common features like large eyes and chubby cheeks, so JJ should get only thin protection. Judge Chen rejected that view before trial, ruling that animators have a wide range of creative choices in a character’s physical traits, clothing, accessories, and personality.⁵ The jury applied the substantial similarity standard but found JoJo “virtually identical” to JJ anyway, satisfying even the stricter test BabyBus had wanted.

Post-Trial Rulings and Injunction

BabyBus moved for judgment as a matter of law and for a new trial. On May 15, 2024, Judge Chen denied both motions in a 53-page order, finding the verdict was “supported by substantial evidence.” The judge noted that the combination of elements supported infringement even if individual elements were not independently protectable, and that the $17.7 million award was actually below the maximum the evidence supported.⁸

The court issued a permanent injunction against BabyBus and imposed sanctions for litigation misconduct. During the lawsuit, BabyBus had modified a 2016 character called “DouDou” and filed for copyright registration of the updated design in 2021. The court found the modifications “appear that they were made to make the DouDou look more like the JoJo character,” and that BabyBus misrepresented this altered version as the basis for its independent-creation defense at trial.⁵

The Ninth Circuit Appeal

BabyBus appealed to the Ninth Circuit, where the case was docketed as Nos. 24-3748 and 24-6757 and consolidated. On November 6, 2025, a three-judge panel of Circuit Judges Patrick J. Bumatay and Ryan D. Nelson, joined by Seventh Circuit Judge David F. Hamilton sitting by designation, affirmed the $23.4 million judgment in full.¹¹

The panel found JJ was “especially distinctive” thanks to his signature “Wow!” gesture, clothing, physical features, and personality, and that a wide range of creative expression remains available for animated baby characters despite genre conventions. Any error in the thick-versus-thin ruling would have been harmless, the panel said, because the jury found JoJo virtually identical to JJ. The court also upheld the jury instructions on filtering protected from unprotected elements, rejected BabyBus’s request for a merger doctrine instruction, and approved the verdict form even though it did not require separate findings on each of the 368 accused videos.¹

Where the Case Stands Now

With the Ninth Circuit’s affirmance, the $23.4 million judgment and the permanent injunction against BabyBus stand. The district court case remains open on ancillary matters. The most recent filing was on April 22, 2026, when Judge Chen issued an order granting in part and denying in part a motion for attorney’s fees.¹²

1
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Moonbug Entertainment Limited v. BabyBus Co., Ltd., Nos. 24-3748, 24-6757
2
GovInfo. Moonbug Entertainment Limited v. Babybus (Fujian) Network Technology Co., Complaint
3
Cartoon Brew. YouTube Terminates CoComelon Rival Super JoJo With 22 Million Subscribers
4
Bloomberg Law. CoComelon Wins Bulk of Copyright Claims, $23.4 Million From Jury
5
Wolters Kluwer. Moonbug Entertainment v. BabyBus (Fujian) Network Technology
6
Cartoon Brew. CoComelon Super JoJo Moonbug BabyBus Lawsuit
7
IMS Legal. Moonbug v. BabyBus
8
Courthouse News Service. BabyBus Loses Bid for New Trial After Copyright Infringement Verdict for CoComelon
9
TYZ Law Group. TYZ Law Group Secures Verdict for Moonbug Entertainment
10
GovInfo. Moonbug Entertainment Limited v. Babybus (Fujian) Network Technology Co., Order on Motion to Dismiss
11
Metropolitan News-Enterprise. CoComelon Copyright Infringement Judgment Affirmed
12
PACER Monitor. Moonbug Entertainment Limited et al v. Babybus (Fujian) Network Technology Co., Ltd