In 2024, South Korea collected 465.3 billion won in music copyright fees, double compared to 2021 and ranked 11th in the global music copyright fee rankings in 2024.
In which, the Korea Music Copyright Association (KOMCA) collected about 436.5 billion won, accounting for 94% of the total domestic music copyright money. After that, this organization distributed 423.5 billion won of copyright money to more than 50,000 members of the Association who are music artists who have signed entrustment contracts with them.
The increasing increase in music copyright fees shows that the Kpop wave is booming strongly and the scale of the Korean music industry is increasing. Along with that, the issue of music copyright management is also being given more attention.
In large corporations and companies in the music field of the land of kimchi such as HYBE, YG Entertainment, SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, there are their own copyright management and music publishing departments. On the other hand, they still cooperate with large copyright management organizations such as KOMCA to make management more detailed and strict.
Bang Chan, Changbin (Stray Kids) of JYP; RM (BTS), Woozi (SEVENTEEN) belong to HYBE; G-Dragon (Big Bang) of Galaxy Corporation is in the Top 10 Kpop artists with the most copyrighted songs through KOMCA, from about 180 to more than 200 songs per artist.
When there is a problem with music copyright, entertainment companies will join hands with KOMCA to resolve it.
In August last year, G-Dragon, along with former YG Chairman Yang Hyun Suk and CEO of YG Plus, were sued by a musician on charges of copyright infringement of the song "G-Dragon" which was composed by this person in 2001.
However, KOMCA quickly exonerated G-Dragon, affirming that the copyright registration file showed that the Big Bang leader did not write his name as the copyright owner of the song, so he was not responsible.
Previously, in February 2025, KOMCA filed a civil lawsuit against Wavve - one of the largest streaming platforms in South Korea - demanding compensation of about 40 billion won for illegally using copyrighted music for many years.
However, Wavve also responded that they had been negotiating with KOMCA since 2020, but this organization imposes too high music copyright fees on streaming platforms, causing the financial burden to double.
Also in February last year, Rosé (Blackpink) attracted attention when she became the rare Kpop artist to withdraw from KOMCA, 22 years after Seo Tai-ji's case.
The female singer did not specify the reason, but observers believe that Rosé's decision partly stems from the limited proportion of revenue allocation from online music streaming to creators in Korea.
Song revenue before reaching composers must go through many layers, including distributors and some copyright management organizations. In the end, real music creators only receive 10.5% of revenue.
Music copyright issues in the AI era
In March this year, the State Audit of Korea shocked when it announced that 29 people had registered more than 200 songs/person with KOMCA in 2024 to receive royalties; but out of their 8,540 songs, up to 5,200 songs (equivalent to 60.9%) were identified as having the ability to compose with the support of AI (artificial intelligence).
This raises suspicions that many songs created entirely by AI without creative contributions from humans are still receiving royalties.
The Korea Copyright Office does not allow the registration of purely AI-generated products as copyrighted works. Only AI products with creative contributions from humans are allowed to be registered, and the contribution rate of AI must be clearly stated.
However, there are currently no clear standards or specific technical methods to prove the level of contribution of the creator regardless of whether AI is used or not.
This situation leads to many creators "circumventing the law" to receive royalties by entrusting their works to collective management organizations without registering with the Copyright Commission.
KOMCA has joined 5 copyright organizations in South Korea to establish a joint committee to respond to the rapidly changing era of artificial intelligence (AI).
This committee aims to build a "Kpop Copyright Standard Model", allowing real-time tracking, fee collection and distribution of music copyright money without missing any usage cases.
