Korean Music Copyright Association Set to Get Involved in Park Jin Young Plagiarism Case

The Korean Music Copyright Association is set to get involved in the plagiarism case between Park Jin Young and Kim Shin Il. Their involvement is expected to have a significant impact on the outcome of the case.

The Seoul Central District Court, which is charge of this case, has sent an interrogatories (also known as a request for further information) to the Korean Music Copyright Association on August 29.

It means that the court wants an opinion from an Association that deals with copyrights for their expert opinion in regards to whether there is an issue of plagiarism involved in this case.

The songs involved in this case, Park’s “Someday” and Kim’s “To My Man” are registered with the Korean Music Copyright Association, with both Park and Kim registered as lyricist, composer and arranger for their respective songs.

Regarding this development Kim stated, “I did not know that the courts had sent a interrogatories to the Korean Music Copyright Association. It would be good to get a positive outcome by having the Korean Music Copyright Association get involved as a middleman.”

A legal expert stated, “Since this case deals with music, which is a specialised subject, it appears that the courts are planning to listen to the opinion of an association that is related to the subject. Even if the Korean Music Copyright Association’s position doesn’t have a decisive influence on the case,  it could become an important piece of evidence in the court’s decision.”

Another expert also said, “My view is that one of the roles that the Korean Music Copyright Association needs to perform is to primarily act as a mediator when there are disputes such as this. However unfortunately the Korean Music Copyright Association has not yet stepped forward to actively inform people of songs that have been judged to be plagiarised or actively pursued other such activities.”

They also said, “Due to this point, having the Korean Music Copyright Association personally get involved in Park Jin Young and Kim Shin Il’s plagiarism dispute is an extremely unprecedented event. We are watching this with keen interest as to whose side they will take as the Korean Music Copyright Association’s judgement could play an important role in the court’s judgement.”

Park and Kim had their first hearing on August 17.

Kim attended this hearing and compared the score for his song “To My Man” with Park’s “Someday” and pointed out the similarities between the two.

Park’s team refuted this by saying that “To My Man” had a similar musical scale and composition compared to Kirk Franklin’s “Hosanna” released in 2002 and Tamia’s “Officially missing you” released in 2004.

The Courts have stated, “Once the results of this case come out, the composers will have to suffer through a massive defamation of character.”

Therefore the Courts have recommended that “Because of this, just like how composer Kim Shin Il has attended court, it would be good to have Park Jin Young or an expert that can represent his position attend court as well.”

More information on Park’s plagiarism case may be found here.