SEOUL – The Korea Music Copyright Association recently implemented a procedure for registering a new song, requiring songwriters to verify that they did not use artificial intelligence, reaffirming 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 percent contributed to writing the song without using AI. The KMCA confirmed that the criteria for not using AI does refer to “0 percent contribution.”

“(Songwriters) are consenting to taking legal liability for any civic or criminal legal proceedings that may accompany false registration,” the group said, saying 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 the largest copyrights group in the country, entrusted with handling the commercial use of the music registered by over 50,000 members.

The group said the new measure is in response to the possible legal issues related to AI-generated songs. Its stance has been that songs used completely by AI cannot be copyrighted, demonstrated by the group in 2022 canceling 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 recognized as creative content outside of Korea, and said will hold hearings and research to devise a system for the AI-assisted songs.

Songs and other creative content written with AI technology has been a topic of fierce discussion across the world, with increasing number of content using AI to a varying degree being released and performed by popular artists.

“Copyright and Artificial Intelligence Part 2: Copyrightability” 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 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, significantly modify or arrange the AI-generated material, or be in a form in which a 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.

Asia News Network/The Korea Herald