[Photo by Yoo Dae-gil = dbeorlf123@]
South Korea’s Seoul Central District Court fined CN Blue and their agency FNC Entertainment on Wednesday, for unauthorized use of Crying Nut’s song.
The long legal battle between boy band CN Blue and the first generation of South Korean punk rock band Crying Nut dates back to 2010. CN Blue performed a cover song of Crying Nut’s “Offside” on music show “M! Countdown”. CN Blue was supposed to cover the song, but people later found out that they were just pretending to play their instruments. Simply said, the group just sang over the CD.
CJ E&M, cable broadcaster had compensated Crying Nut for using their song without permission. But to make things worse, the music clip of CN Blue performing Crying Nut’s song was included in CN Blue’s DVD album set released in Japan. Crying Nut took legal action against CN Blue, claiming that the boy group violated Crying Nut’s copyrights.
The court announced its decision. “CN Blue and FNC’s acts of performing on Crying Nut’s song without copyright owner’s permission are clearly a violation of copyright law.” And also added that CN Blue’s defense, pleading not guilty while claiming all faults are with the broadcasting company, was denied because “the artists themselves should have known that performing on other artists’ music without permission is a violation of copyright act.”
CN Blue was fined for KR\ 1.5 million (US$ 1,245) to compensate for Crying Nut’s loss. However, the court did not take any action on CN Blue’s Japanese album which included Crying Nut’s song.
아주경제 박세진 기자 = swatchsjp@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
