Kpopalypse music theory class is back! Let’s learn about the incredibly boring topic of music copyright, and I’ll try to make it as unboring as I possibly can but it probably won’t be! Let’s go!
So why is music copyright being tackled as part of the Kpopalypse music theory series? Because if you’re interested in making music at all, copyrights is something you’re probably going to want to know about! So let’s learn all about copyright!
So what’s copyright?
Copyright is some rights that are automatically given to the creator of a work. It gives the creator of the work the “exclusive right” to copy, distribute, adapt, perform or broadcast the work in public.
There’s all sorts of copyrights but there’s a few which are specific to music.
Music copyright – the composer of a piece of music owns the combination of the sounds in the music: melody, harmony and rhythm, in combination.
Lyrics copyright – the lyrics of a piece of music are a “literary work” and are also copyright, these fall under the same type of protection as poetry and books.
Mechanical copyright – a sound recording also contains its own copyright.
Not all pieces are copyright. Some are public domain.
What’s a public domain piece?
A piece that is public domain is one where the copyright on it has expired. Copyright persists in musical works for 70 years after the death of the copyright holder, after this time it enters the public domain which means that there is no longer an enforcable music or lyrics copyright.
So what’s mechanical copyright?
Mechanical copyright belongs in the sound recording of a performance. A mechanical copyright may still apply even on a piece with no musical or lyrical copyright.
Wait, what?
Imagine that you’re performing and recording a public domain piece, like this piece by Bach which is being performed and recorded by ex-Gangkiz member Leezy:
Leezy of course doesn’t own the music copyright to Bach’s piece, and nor does Bach because he’s been dead for a while now so it’s a public domain piece. There’s no lyrical copyright for anyone to own either as the song has no words, but Leezy does own the mechanical copyright in her particular sound recording of her performance of this piece, which means someone else can’t just go and claim it (or her) as their own (as much as they may want to).
Do k-pop artists own their own copyrights?
Usually not, as they are not usually the composers of the music or lyrics in their songs. They often don’t own the mechanical copyright either, as this often belongs to the company. Such things are determined by the contract that the k-pop artist signs when they join their agency.
This is probably why Taylor Swift re-recorded a lot of her old songs, she would have already owned musical/lyrical copyright in a lot of cases, but her original contract possibly stated that she didn’t own the mechanical copyright, that it belonged to the company instead (as this is fairly standard for recording contracts both east and west). By recording new versions where she also owns mechancial copyright, she now owns all types of copyright in these new versions.
What about when my k-pop fave is credited as a writer or producer?
They may own partial copyright in these cases. How much depends on whatever the agreement is between the parties who wrote the song and the company, and may or may not be a true reflection of who wrote what, it’s just what was agreed to be claimed. So in other words, they are allowed to lie, as long as all parties agree that the lie is fair and sign off on it. For instance, almost all Beatles songs were credited to Lennon/McCartney, which was an agreement between the group members as they wanted royalties to be shared equally, however in reality most songs were written solely by either John Lennon or Paul McCartney, not both. They also agreed that the other two members George Harrison and Ringo Starr should get a small royalty as well for their contribution to performing the songs that they didn’t write (0.8% each as it happens, mind you 0.8% of a Beatles hit in the 1960s was still a lot of money). Rights can also be transferred. Someone can choose to sell their copyrights to another person, or to another company.
Order of crediting also has no bearing on who wrote what or the royalty split between each member. It’s not like food labels where the most prominent ingredient has to be labelled first, the order here is not relevant. Your bias being first on the list of songwriters is probably just because the agency knows you like them and would like to see their name first.
So what’s a royalty?
Royalties are the money paid to copyright holders by those who use their musical works, which is how songwriters make money from having a hit song. Most songwriters don’t collect such fees directly from the people using their works, but through a royalty collection agency. For instance, radio and TV stations plus live music venues and even restaurants and dance schools pay royalty licensing fees to royalty collection agencies to host broadcasts and performances and play recordings of various copyrighted works, these fees are then distributed by the agency to the copyright holders, which is why as a copyright holder you should register yourself with your country’s copyright collection agency (in Australia it’s APRA/AMCOS but almost all countries have their own).
So my k-pop fave should be getting paid, right?
Not so fast. Your k-pop fave probably agreed to take on a debt in their initial contract and any royalty payments most likely go towards paying off that debt before the artist themselves ever sees any money. Promotional costs and so forth during the lifespan of the idol’s career (music videos, advertising etc) are usually added to that debt, so it’s possible for your k-pop faves to write lots of songs, make lots of money but still never see any royalties. I’ve written about this before here.
However an outside songwriter who doesn’t have a pre-existing debt with a k-pop agency doesn’t have those kind of concerns and can see any profit from their music straight away whenever the royalty collection agency and the k-pop company get their shit together and pay them. This period is typically a few months but can vary, it’s certainly not an immediate scenario.
What happens when someone does a cover song?
Essentially almost all k-pop artists are doing “cover songs” as they usually are not the songwriters or their music or lyrics. In these cases it’s the original songwriters who get the royalty.
Neither IU nor SHINee wrote “Sherlock”, so neither of them are receiving the songwriting royalties from this performance. This money goes to the original songwriters instead.
Can the original songwriters prevent a cover version from being performed or recorded?
Yes. In practice this happens rarely – as the original songwriters receive money for performances of cover versions, most of them are very happy to just sit back and collect that money for doing nothing. However in some cases they may not wish for the original songs to be performed by the cover artist so they can legally prevent this if they choose. This happened recently with Baek Yerin (ex-15&) and Gureum from The Volunteers in a recent situation that caused confusion for many. While Baek Yerin and Gureum used to work together, as Gureum was the songwriter, Baek Yerin’s solo performances of the songs he wrote for her technically constitute a cover version.
What about sampling?
Yes, a copyright holder can prevent this also. The laws around sampling dictate that a person must not take a “substantial part” of the work without permission. This isn’t measured in seconds or percentages, but in terms of what makes the work distinctive and unique, so therefore, if it is unique enough that it can be identified as coming from the original work, then permission is required. What this amounts to in practice is “don’t take enough to get caught”.
Are there any types of use that a copyright holder cannot prevent?
Some types of use of other people’s musical works come under “fair dealing” (also known as “fair use”). Examples of these are:
- review purposes (but only a “reasonable portion” can be used, not the entire thing, so a “reaction video” of an entire song is not “fair dealing” but a review that shows short snippets to illustrate examples might be)
- research or study (it’s hard to write an academic paper on a piece of creative work that you can’t show examples from)
- satirical use (such as a parody version)
There are also what is called “statutory rights” and these vary by country. For instance, there is a statutory right that covers education and government use in a lot of countries, that say that educational and government institutions can use your songs and you can’t say no, but they must pay you.
Note that copyright detection algorithms on popular websites don’t recognise these types of uses as “fair dealing” and will copyright strike you for them anyway. That’s because these services are all fucking dogshit. YouTube’s ContentID is just lazy cowboy AI bullshit written by fuckheads and as a result it can’t tell the difference between satirical content, research content, review content and a genuine case of infringement. Hopefully someone big and important sues YouTube and other companies who use algorithmic detection one day and all the people who ever worked on these systems find themselves homeless under a bridge.
What’s all this stuff I hear about Creative Commons?
These are different types of licences, which nobody serious about music actually uses because you’re probably not going to make any money this way. You can read more about the different types of Creative Commons licenses here if you give a fuck, but in short, you can use these licenses to choose to waive some or all of the usual copyright protections that you would normally get by being a creator, in exchange for… nothing, basically. It’s essentially like putting your work partly or fully into the public domain. There’s probably some edge cases where this is useful for music (demo versions perhaps) but generally speaking – don’t do this, because the chances of you making a goddamn cent off of your music are already slim to none so why fuck yourself out of one of the few chances to get paid that you actually have left.
What are “moral rights” in music?
There are also moral rights that creative people have, and these exist whether you are being paid for your music or not. They also exist in other types of copyright such as film, books, etc. Moral rights basically fall into two categories:
- Attribution – you have a moral right to be identified as the creator of your work, and to stop “false attribution” (someone else claiming your work)
- Integrity – you have a moral right to not have your music used in a way that would harm your reputation (this doesn’t stop you from harming your own reputation by making shit music though – shit music example below for clarification purposes)
Moral rights, just like regular copyright, last for 70 years after the death of the copyright holder.
How do I copyright my work?
You probably don’t need to, in most countries copyright is automatic. However there are ways that you can prove that you wrote something, if you ever feel that you might need to. Some countries allow you to register with a copyright office, I do this with my books (this post will show you how) but I’ve never done this with any music because I’ve never sold any music through any American-based retailers. If your country doesn’t allow you to register your work (mine doesn’t), another way to prove that you wrote something is to mail a copy of it to yourself, and when the copy arrives in the post, don’t open the package. Now you have a sealed, postmarked and datestamed document that you can open in a courtroom to prove that you wrote a work, in the unlikely event that it should ever become necessary.
What about other extra-musical aspects of k-pop like dance steps? Are they copyright?
Copyright law says that if your dance is “original” and “recorded” then it can be considered copyright, however dance is also a communal activity by its very nature – preventing other people from doing your dance is usually the opposite of what someone wants to achieve with a dance routine, which is, to get as many other people dancing it as possible. As a result, dance copyright is a fairly untested legal area (because what creator of a dance wants to litigate to stop other people dancing) but I think there would be a case in instances of “false attribution”, i.e if someone claimed your entire three minute original dance routine as theirs. You couldn’t copyright a single “dance move” (if Michael Jackson sued people for moonwalking it would have been a very short dance trend)… but since nobody has even been dumb enough to go to court for this, we don’t really know. If you’d like to ponder this topic yourself, see if you can work out if the girl on the right is infringing on the copyright of the girl on the left, or vice versa.
Other nonsense that deluded-as-fuck k-pop fans rave on about as “copyright infringement”, such as having the same dress/fingernails/stage props/lightsticks/anal beads/whatever is just pure idiocy and if you see people posting about this kind of thing be sure to ridicule them mercilessly. Anyway that’s it for this quick primer on copyright! Kpopalypse will return!
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