Recent Music Disappears in ‘Bugsmusic’

The provisional disposition against the free music site ‘Bugsmusic’ for forbidding illegal reproduction of music, filed by the Korean Association of Phonogram Producers (KAPP) and 13 recording companies including SM Entertainment and YBM Seoul Records, was accepted.

The company, which owns new songs of most major singers, filed the provisional disposition. Accordingly, Bugsmusic cannot service new songs any longer.

Moreover, Bugsmusic, who was the top online music streaming service company in Korea with 14 million members, also claimed to compensate damages of 12 billion won. Therefore, they are also paying close attention to how the conclusion may impact their actions.

The sentence from the Civil Affair 50th division of Seoul distric court (Presiding Judge Lee Gong-hyun) stated, “Because without any intentional deletion, the electronic music files stored in a computer could be considered an everlasting material, the act of Bugsmusic to store music files in a computer server comes under the reproduction of the records.”

The court also added, “While Bugsmusic insists the article is in copyright act, protecting broadcasting companies from demanding prohibition, should also be activated on this case; Bugsmusic cannot be regarded as a broadcasting company.”

Under this decision, Bugsmusic must delete approximately 10,000 music files, to which KAPP and the 13 recording companies have copyright for access. The copyright for access means the right to copy or distribute the sound source by the recording company.

Yoo Sung-woo, judicial director of Bugsmusic remarked, “We are still confirmed that music streaming (information technology to transfer the large volume of images and voices through the internet) services does not infringe on copyrights and we will take legal procedures, like an objection, to the provisional disposition.”

The 13 recording companies and KAPP submitted this provisional disposition on forbidding the reproduction of records to Seoul district court in July and August saying, “Bugsmusic trespasses on the copyright for access by keeping songs in our records as a form of compressed electronic files in its computer server.”

Soo-Kyung Kim skkim@donga.com