KOMCA “OTT claims for duplicate collection and has no legal basis”

KOMCA corporate office [Photo provided = KOMCA]

Korea Music Copyright Association (KOMCA President: Hong Jin-young) has established a new collection rule last December and some domestic OTT made lawsuit against Ministry of Culture Sports and Tourism (MCST).

They claim that the music royalty is already paid while making the movie and drama so paying once more to service those is a duplicate collection.

The claim is based on the fact that the content makers which are also distributors have paid the royalty. OTTs asserts that there is no need to pay once more to distribute in another media.

KOMCA refutes that the claim does not make sense. For example Melon has to pay the royalty even if its affiliate Kakao Music has paid it. Royalty must be paid for different purpose of use. OTT would not let their video to be viewed and sold by just paying once.

They also added that the content creators get paid multiple times by how the contents are distributed. They collect license fee from TV viewers and subscription fee for OTT. They say that the same logic should be applied for music royalty. Also there is no permission for OTTs in the contract that they have made with the distributors which is a global norm. HBO pays additional royalty if they service video on their OTT HBO Plus.

Youtube being a foreign business pays royalty for their advertising earnings with their subscription earnings made by Youtube Premium. KOMCA stresses that royalty is paid by type period and cases. They say that only some of the domestic OTTs are going against this global rule.

KOMCA is also not satisfied with MCST. They think that 1.5% fee which is lower than the international 2.5%. The fee was rearranged due to resistance of OTTs. Since then OTTs are forcing their opinion in other rules they say.

KOMCA said that some OTTs did not pay any royalty for years. They could not understand why the government and musicians should offer unfair benefit to private businesses which is a reverse discrimination to all other businesses who are fairly competing in the market. They called the OTTs on paying the royalty and making apologies to musicians.

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