AI is already making music. Korea is conflicted over who calls the tune.

A recent move in Korea to accept songs created with AI assistance for royalty collection has sparked a new dispute over who gets to set the rules, as the world's seventh-largest music market continues to wrestle with how to handle works created using generative AI.

With AI already widely used in music production and overseas rights organizations formalizing how such works are handled, the dispute raises a more fundamental question: What should the social consensus required for a new set of rules look like?

Lawmaker tackles rights organization

The latest flashpoint came when Rep. Kim Jae-won of the minor liberal Rebuilding Korea Party abruptly canceled a policy seminar on “protecting creators and establishing a fair compensation system for a sustainable music industry in the generative AI era,” originally scheduled to take place on Monday at the National Assembly.

It was to be co-hosted by the lawmaker’s office and the Korea Music Copyright Association (Komca) — the country’s largest music copyright collective, similar to the United States’ performing rights organizations (PRO) — with the organization’s newly appointed chairman Lee Si-ha set to demonstrate how AI tools can be used in music creation during the seminar.

The event, however, was abruptly canceled on Sunday.

Kim instead held a press conference on Monday, accusing Komca of bypassing proper procedures in deciding to accept AI-assisted songs for royalty collection.

“Because legal and institutional standards have yet to be established, there was a risk that an announcement by a particular organization could make the issue appear as if it had already been settled, and that a National Assembly forum could be misconstrued as endorsing that decision,” Kim said on Monday.

“I canceled the event to avoid setting the wrong precedent in which a particular organization writes the rules itself and the National Assembly and the government merely follow.”

The cancellation followed Komca’s Aug. 4 announcement introducing new registration criteria for the royalty collection of AI-assisted music — Korea’s first officially written standards for registering and managing AI-assisted musical works.

Under the new rules, songs created with AI tools may be registered with Komca when human creators have played a substantive role in writing the lyrics, composing or arranging the work. Applicants must disclose which parts of the creative process involved AI, which tools were used and how they were employed.

Works generated entirely by AI, on the other hand, remain ineligible.

Komca said  that the measure was intended “to formally accommodate AI-assisted methods of creation while protecting the rights of human creators.”

Kim, however, questioned Komca’s authority to take the lead on an issue that has yet to be resolved through legislation or public consensus.

“Who gave Komca the authority to decide first whether rights should be recognized for AI music?” she asked, stressing that Korea has yet to reach either a social or legislative conclusion on the copyright status of AI-generated music. “Komca must clearly account for the confusion it has caused among creators and the industry by acting without sufficient public discussion.”

Keeping up with global standards

A Komca spokesperson, however, told the Korea JoongAng Daily that registration with the organization does not confer copyright.

“Komca did not create a new legal right or determine whether AI music qualifies for copyright protection,” the representative said. “Nor does it have the authority to do so.”

Rather, Komca said it had introduced a disclosure-based registration process that records both the creator’s human contribution and the extent of AI involvement. The organization argues that the system reflects emerging practices overseas, also creating a record that could later be used to identify works falsely presented as human created despite being generated entirely by AI.

“Previously, we simply asked whether AI had been used and placed the registration of every work reported as involving AI on hold,” the official said. “Under the new procedure, applicants who used AI must record which areas it was used in and to what extent, and directly confirm and warrant that they made a substantive creative contribution.”

Until this month, Komca had suspended the registration of all works whose applicants disclosed the use of AI. That was relatively conservative compared to the approach adopted by three major North American performing rights organizations in October last year.

Two major U.S. PROs — the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music, Inc — and the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada issued a joint statement last year that they would accept musical works partially generated by AI with human authorship into their repertoires. Works created entirely using AI remained ineligible.

The organizations said the aligned policies reflected “the fact that songwriters and composers increasingly incorporate a variety of AI tools into their creative process and workflow.”

Should legislation precede industry standards?

What, then, would the social “consensus” on AI music look like?

The United States has not enacted federal legislation establishing a new copyright standard for AI-assisted music. Instead, existing copyright principles — particularly the requirement of human authorship — have been applied to works created using generative AI.

The Korea Copyright Commission also published the "Guide to Copyright Registration for Generative AI-assisted Works" last year, stating that "if a human makes a creative contribution by performing additional work on an autonomous output [by AI], the corresponding portion may be eligible for copyright registration."

"AI is developing rapidly and is already widely used in the creative process, making it increasingly difficult to ignore," said Lie Jae-won, a visiting professor in Sungkyunkwan University’s Department of Culture and Technology and author of "AI and Idol" (2025), adding, “I see the Komca’s move as an attempt to establish a minimum common ground.”

It is no longer "realistic" to draw a rigid line between human and AI creation, Lie pointed out, saying, “I do not agree that Komca should have waited until legislation was enacted before taking action — these technological changes can be reflected in the legislative process, during which a broader consensus can be developed.”

Yet Lie also suggested that Komca’s current criteria should “define more precisely which forms and degrees of AI use are allowed and coordinate that process with legislation and decisions on when royalties should be distributed.”

Meanwhile, Komca has also been working with five other music rights organizations, including the Recording Industry Association of Korea, through a joint committee established in late February to develop new standards for protecting music rights in the AI era. Komca’s latest registration criteria, however, were introduced by the organization independently rather than as a joint policy agreed upon by the six groups.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.haee@joongang.co.kr]