Korea's AI Music Registration, Reversed in 22 Days

🧭Rights and royalties are two different desks#

Recognition and trust are judged apart

A song involving AI passes two separate judgments. One is whether the output is recognised as a protected work, the other is whether KOMCA takes the song on and collects and distributes fees for it. An official at the ministry's copyright industry division also explained that the two are separate questions. Mix them and it is hard to see which one is blocked.

Rights exist without registration#

What the copyright act assumes

Korean copyright law does not make registration a condition of the right. A work such as a piece of music carries copyright from the moment it is created, with no separate filing. So saying registration is blocked is not the same as saying there is no right. What is blocked is not the right itself but the route the money travels.

A society collects the fees#

Collecting in person is impractical

Collecting a fee in person every time the song is used is not practical. So lyricists and composers entrust their rights to a society such as KOMCA, and the society collects the fees and distributes them. Fees for a song not accepted into trust do not arrive by this route. That is how a registration standard becomes an income route.

June 2025, the line the government drew#

A prompt alone is not enough

In June 2025 the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Korea Copyright Commission issued a guide to registering copyright in works made with generative AI. The guide drew a line: a result with creative human involvement can be registered, while a purely AI generated output cannot. Simply entering a prompt or making a trivial edit does not count as a creative contribution. For music too, it wrote, the contribution has to go beyond entering a prompt.

📝2025, a declaration box appears on the form#

Management that began with self reporting

The first device for checking AI involvement was not a review but the application form. KOMCA had the person registering declare it themselves, and gave that declaration legal force. With no technology to tell, it was also the method available. This structure became the background to the audit finding the following year.

March 24, 2025#

Declare it yourself

From March 24, 2025 KOMCA required anyone registering a new song to declare that AI had no part in its creation. A single checkbox on the application carries legal force. A song reported as having used AI has its registration held. Neither allowed nor forbidden but held was the answer at that point.

The liability a false entry carries#

The weight of one checkbox

A false entry can delay royalty payments or remove the registered song, and it can bring civil and criminal liability. With no detection technology on the checking side, the burden falls on the side doing the declaring. One line on the form works like a contract.

March 24, 2026#

An audit finding and KOMCA's reply

The Board of Audit and Inspection reviewed how 11 copyright trust management societies operate. Its finding was that the 11, KOMCA among them, register works and collect and distribute fees without separately checking whether AI was used. KOMCA replied the next day that it already runs a registration hold. In the same statement it said there is still no authoritative technology for telling whether AI was used, leaving it to rely on creators declaring it themselves.

⏱️August 2026, registration open for 22 days#

Between taking effect and withdrawal

KOMCA put a new standard into force on August 3, 2026 and resolved to withdraw it on August 25. In between, the National Assembly and the ministry each applied a brake. The standard stayed open for 22 days. What matters in this stretch is less what changed than why it was reversed.

August 3, only the part a person led#

A 50 percent line and proof

Under the rule, a song in which a person took a substantial and leading part in the lyrics, the composition or the arrangement would be accepted into trust for the part that person created. KOMCA treated involvement of 50 percent or more in the creation as leading. Applicants also had to document which AI tools they used, how much and how. A clause set a penalty of up to three times for false entries.

August 10 and August 18#

The Assembly and the ministry pulled the brake

On August 10 the National Assembly raised the point that AI music copyright has neither social consensus nor a legislative conclusion. On August 18 the ministry sent KOMCA an official letter recommending that public debate across the arts come first. What was at issue was not the content of the standard but the order in which it was set.

August 25, the eighth board meeting#

Withdrawn on day 22

On August 25 KOMCA's eighth board meeting resolved to withdraw the revision. It was 22 days after the new standard took effect. Announcing the withdrawal, it said that setting a standard for AI assisted songs can no longer be put off. What was reversed was not the conclusion but the way of reaching one.

📌The rules left after the withdrawal#

What the desk runs on now

Withdrawing does not return things to a state where nothing happened. A prohibition still applies, and how to handle songs received or registered during those 22 days was settled at the same time. For anyone registering a song today, these are the rules that actually apply.

100 percent AI output stays blocked#

A line untouched by the withdrawal

A 100 percent AI generated output with no substantial creative contribution from a person is still not registered. This line existed before the new standard and remained after it was withdrawn. What opened and closed was how to treat a song a person took some part in.

The songs that arrived in those 22 days#

Cancelled, held, terminated

An AI assisted song that completed registration during the period the new standard was in force goes through cancellation. A song that was only received and not yet registered is held until a new standard arrives. Where membership was completed on the basis of an AI assisted song, the trust contract is terminated.

Two incomes forking out of one song#

Copyright and neighbouring rights

Maeum-ui Sup by the music project Joseon Hiphop entered the Melon Top 100 on September 7, 2026 and climbed to number 89. A person wrote the lyrics, while the composition and the vocals were made with Suno, an AI music generation service. Joseon Hiphop earns no copyright income from the track, only the neighbouring rights income it receives as the producer of the recording. Within one song the two rights travel different roads.

🔍When the standard is set again#

Open questions and what to stack up now

The ministry said it plans to hold a forum as early as September 2026 to gather views. What the next standard will require is not settled, but there is a direction the government and KOMCA both pointed to. That direction and the question still unanswered sit on this branch.

The record of the creative process#

The process, not the finished track

What the government guide and KOMCA both pointed to is the record of the creative process. The guide said explanatory material about the process, or video of the work session, can serve as evidence in a registration review. KOMCA's president had proposed, since before taking office, submitting DAW files that prove the actual creative process, and the association is considering adopting it. A DAW is the working software used to record and edit music.

What to measure it by is unanswered#

Where the 50 percent line sat

The unresolved question is what the human contribution is measured by. The withdrawn rule assumed a line at 50 percent. Yet KOMCA has itself said there is no authoritative technology for telling whether AI was used. Until a way of measuring is settled, the next standard stops at the same place.