A total of 20 songs have been swept up in legitimate plagiarism controversies since 2000, and it has recently been revealed by the Committee on Culture, Sports, Tourism, Broadcasting & Communications that the royalties earned by these songs total to $1,724,138 USD.


Jin Sungho of the Committee revealed a series of documents submitted by the Korea Music Copyright Association describing the situation behind royalties received by composers that have plagiarized. According to the document, the court has found a total of 20 songs to be plagiarized, some including MC Mong’s “Letter to You,” Hyori’s “I’m Back” and “Swing,” Lee Seung Ki’s “Mask,” Son Dambi’s “Saturday Night,” Lee Seung Chul’s “Scream,” CNBlue’s “Loner,” and GDragon’s “Heartbreaker.” The problem lies in the fact that royalty payments of nearly $250,000 USD per song were paid without any clear standards, totaling nearly 2 million USD.

Jin Sungho went on to state, “To plagiarize is to steal a creation by someone else. It is unjust for royalties to be paid when songs are found to be plagiarized and/or suspected to be plagiarized. We will be aggressively pressing the government offices to create a guideline on plagiarism in order to protect the rights of music producers.”



Source: Everyday Economy
shared by: hypermaniac@allkpop
Credits: alee@ibigbang