The Korea Music Copyright Association (KOMCA) has decided to withhold the payment of copyright fees for the hit song ‘Cupid’ by the group Fifty Fifty, following a request from their agency, Attrakt.
On the 18th, a KOMCA official informed SpoTV News, saying, “On the 14th, Attrakt submitted an application for payment suspension, and after discussing the matter on the same day, the decision to withhold the copyright fees was made.”
‘Cupid,’ released on February 24th, entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart on March 27th, gaining attention. It has remained in the top rankings of the Hot 100 chart for 16 consecutive weeks, making it a mega-hit, and substantial copyright fees are expected.
KOMCA calculates and pays out copyright fees on the 23rd of each month. Recently, there has been an ongoing dispute over the copyright of ‘Cupid’ between Attrakt and the external producing company, The GIVERS. Attract has sued The GIVERS and submitted an application for payment suspension to KOMCA, which was accepted.
On the 27th of last month, Attrakt filed a lawsuit against The GIVERS’ CEO, Ahn Sung-il, and three others, claiming that The GIVERS had secretly obtained the copyright to ‘Cupid.’ Originally, the song ‘Cupid’ was composed by three Swedish songwriters. However, according to Dispatch reports, currently, 95.5% of the copyright of this song is owned by The GIVERS and Ahn Sung Il.
The GIVERS claim that they legally acquired the copyright ownership by signing a rights transfer agreement with the three original Swedish songwriters in February. However, on the 17th, Dispatch dropped a shocking report which alleges that The GIVERS’ CEO, Ahn Sung Il, forged the autographs of the three Swedish songwriters and submitted a certificate of change of ownership to KOMCA so he could obtain the copyright royalties all to himself, engaging in illegal actions.
At the time of the release of the report by Dispatch, a source from The GIVERS told news outlets they were looking into the situation, no further comment has been made since.
Source: (A)
