"Is the song titled 'Eunsin Deungdae' called 'Because It's the First Time, A Few Days Later~'?"

Chinese Record Label Registers Content ID on YouTube Before Original Label
Korea Copyright Protection Agency Corrects Rights for 14 Songs and Reviews Major Tracks Released Over 31 Years
108 Additional Songs Discovered, 93 Rights Information Corrected... Expanded Monitoring of Illegal Apps and SNS
Police Agency and Interpol Cooperate on Overseas Investigations: "A Culture of Rejecting Illegal Files and Links Must Be Established"

"I am aware that the Chinese record company is posing as the original copyright holder. If they had followed the proper procedures, we would have granted permission for use, but they used methods beyond imagination, which is baffling." This was a post left by singer Younha on social media in May. The song "Gidarida" that he sang was cleverly adapted and registered on YouTube as if it were the original. The Chinese record company registered the Content ID before the original label. Content ID is a YouTube system that allows copyright owners to identify content using their works.

Through investigations by netizens, more songs victimized by the same method were uncovered. These include fourteen songs such as IU's "Achim Nunmul," Brown Eyes' "Beolsseo Illyeon," Lee Seung-chul's "Seojjok Haneul," god's "Gil," and Toy's "Joeun Saram." Neighboring rights (rights of record producers, singers, performers, etc.) royalties were distributed to Chinese record companies like Believe Music, Eway Music, and Enjoy Music.

The Korea Copyright Protection Agency conducted an investigation into copyright infringement on YouTube to rectify these abuses. They assessed the status of major songs released over the past 31 years. The Korea Music Copyright Association, a collective management organization, also focused on habitual infringing Chinese record companies to check for damages. A total of 108 infringement cases were identified. Most of these were songs released from the 1990s to the early 2010s, before YouTube became popular in Korea.

Singer Younha who suffered copyright infringement

The Copyright Protection Agency provided the monitoring results to the respective record companies to support the correction of copyright information. According to YouTube policy, the rights holders themselves must directly respond to correct rights information. Lee Yong-il, head of the Online Protection Department at the Copyright Protection Agency, said, "We investigated songs with unclear rights in cooperation with the Korea Record Industry Association and the Korea Music Content Association and informed them of the relevant facts," adding, "To correct rights information, claims from domestic record companies are essential."

All fourteen songs initially involved had their rights information corrected. Among the additional 108 songs identified, ninety-three also had their rights restored. Lee said, "For the fifteen songs not yet resolved, we have again informed the rights holders (record companies) of the monitoring results and other details."

To prevent copyright infringement on YouTube, record companies must actively register Content IDs. Now that YouTube has established itself as a revenue-generating platform, most record companies carry out this as an essential task. Copyright infringement occurs not only on YouTube but also through various other channels. From January to September, the Copyright Protection Agency detected 2,166 illegal Chinese websites. Rights were infringed across all content fields, including music, movies, dramas, webtoons, and animations.

YouTube is considered relatively better. When copyright disputes arise, there is a system to notify the parties involved and resolve the issue. In fact, in this case, the domestic record companies held legitimate rights and related materials, so the Chinese record companies could not raise any objections.

Korea Copyright Protection Agency Copyright Infringement Response Comprehensive Situation Room

The Copyright Protection Agency is expanding its cooperation scope to respond to diversified infringements. In particular, last July, it monitored the distribution status of illegal music mobile applications suspected of copyright infringement and shared the information with the Music Content Association. Twenty-nine illegal mobile apps detected at that time were deleted. Lee said, "We are monitoring an additional 240 apps and pushing for their deletion." He added, "Due to ongoing issues with Hallyu copyright infringement in China, we hired additional monitoring workers proficient in Chinese in the second half of the year."

The Copyright Protection Agency is also concretizing measures to block illegal sites at the source. Kang Dae-oh, head of the Management Planning Office at the Copyright Protection Agency, said, "We are continuously negotiating with Google to restrict search results for copyright-infringing sites," adding, "We have expanded the scope to include blocking ads (AdSense) on illegal sites."

Monitoring of illegal distribution also takes place on SNS, cafes, blogs, and Naver Band. Community-type SNS are closed spaces where a small number of people share information with the approval of the creator. Monitoring and crackdowns inevitably have limitations. Illegal copies distributed on overseas SNS such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter also pose challenges for administrative actions. The agency provides monitoring results to rights holders to support deletion measures.

The movie 'Minari,' which suffered great damage from illegal copying

The Copyright Protection Agency will establish a big data-based comprehensive copyright infringement response system next year to enhance understanding and response capabilities. It will integrate infringement occurrence, recognition, analysis, and response into one system. Lee said, "Functions such as monitoring, review, infringement response, and information provision will be significantly improved," and explained, "New support projects will be launched for introducing copyright protection technologies and responding to infringements overseas." He added, "We have already established a Digital Forensic Center to advance these functions."

The scope of overseas investigations will also expand. In April, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism signed an international cooperation agreement on investigations with the National Police Agency's National Investigation Headquarters and Interpol. Joint crackdowns on illegal sites will be conducted with agencies such as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Investigations. Lee said, "Most servers are located overseas. Since the operator's country of residence, site registration country, and server location country differ, cooperation from multiple countries is necessary."

Pyo Gwang-jong, head of the Copyright Protection Division at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said, "We have achieved meaningful results through investigations over the past six months," and added, "We plan to disclose the results within the year." He continued, "While apprehending operators and recovering criminal proceeds are important, above all, a social atmosphere rejecting illegal files and links must be created," and said, "We will conduct copyright infringement prevention activities with socially influential figures."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.