Human voice: Kpop is a huge industry, including in publication. In songwriting, the new measure is hoped to prevent possible legal issues related to AI-generated songs. — Tuttle
THE Korea Music Copyright Association (KMCA) recently implemented a procedure for registering a new song, requiring songwriters to verify that they did not use artificial intelligence (AI), re-affirming its stance that AI-generated music cannot be copyrighted.
The new measure, which went into effect on March 24, mandates songwriters to confirm they have 100% contributed to writing the song without using AI. The KMCA confirmed that the criteria for not using AI does refer to “0% contribution”.
“[Songwriters] are consenting to taking legal liability for any civic or criminal legal proceedings that may accompany false registration,” the group said, adding that those who do not consent will have their registration put on hold.
If a song that was registered as not having used AI later is found to have used it, the group said it can implement measures such as postponing royalty payments or cancelling the registration.
The KMCA is Korea’s largest copyrights group, handling the commercial use of music registered by over 50,000 members.
The group said the new measure is in response to possible legal issues related to AI-generated songs. Its stance has been that songs created completely by AI cannot be copyrighted, demonstrated by the group in 2022 cancelling royalty payments for six songs written by AI songwriter EvoM.
The new limitations cover all songs with AI input, but it could change. The KMCA is still mulling how to deal with AI-assisted songs, referring to cases in which songwriters used AI tools for assistance in songwriting, such as coming up with a topic, title, or composing a part of the melody or riff.
The group said such cases have been recognised as creative content outside of South Korea, and it said will hold hearings and research to devise a system for AI-assisted songs.
Songs and other creative content written with AI technology has been a topic of fierce discussion across the world, with increasing content using AI to a varying degree being released and performed by popular artists.
“Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 2: Copyright-ability” by the US Copyrights Office, published in January, said that some forms of AI-generated content can receive copyright protection as long as a human substantially contributed to the content.
It clarified that while human creativity should remain central to copyright law and intellectual property rights, simple use of AI does not disqualify a creative work from being copyrighted.
For AI-assisted work to be copyrighted, a human’s contribution should be sufficiently expressive and creative, signifi-cantly modify or arrange the AI-generated material, or be in a form in which human-created content is incorporated into AI output.
Editing images or music, generating rough drafts, or assisting the human-led production of the content are acceptable input of the AI in the copyrightable works, according to the US office. – The Korea Herald/Asia News Network
