South Korean Government Intervenes To Deal With K-pop Song Piracy In China

IU (Instagram @edam.official)

JAKARTA - In recent times, netizens found several K-pop songs re-recorded by Chinese artists. The song has the same tone but has translated lyrics.

Some of the K-pop songs hijacked include IU's Tear Drops in the Morning, Brown Eyes' Already One Year, and Younha's Waiting. The songs were re-recorded by singers from China and uploaded to YouTube through a Chinese label.

Seeing the number of cases of piracy, South Korea's Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism intervened to take care of the case.

They consider this act to be copyright infringing due to the similarity of tone and do not have official permission to re-sing.

'It's really frustrating because this (incident) is beyond what was imagined. But we'll get it done. By doing this, you can't touch someone's heart or a lot of money", Younha told the Korea Herald in May 2021.

Reportedly the copyright holder of the song has also reported to the Ministry. They will work with YouTube Korea to take care of the case.

"We will take steps to prevent copyright from being infringed on YouTube by unauthorized song adaptation", said a Ministry of Culture official.

Furthermore, they request that copyright holders must also actively claim their rights.