CNBLUE Facing Copyright Violation Lawsuit

Idol rock band CNBLUE members Lee Jung-shin (left), Lee Jong-hyun (second to left), Jung Yong-hwa (second to right) and Kang Min-hyuk (right) at the 2nd Gaon Chart K-POP Awards at the Seoul’s Olympic Hall in Korea on February 13, 2013. (TenAsia/ Park Jin-soo)

Idol rock band CNBLUE is once again caught in a copyright violation controversy, this time with a Korean indie band, Crying Nut.

Crying Nut’s management firm Drug Record sued the idol band and their agency FNC Entertainment for damages citing an infringement of their copyright. The issue has been taken to the Seoul Central District Court on February 12.  

Korean indie band Crying Nut members Han Kyung-rok (left), Park Yoon-sik (center) and Lee Sang-myun (right) on the stage in a club in Seoul, Korea. (Drug Record)

Suing CNBLUE and their agency for 40 million Korean Won [approximately 36,866 U.S. dollars], the indie label claimed that CNBLUE used the original sound source of Crying Nut’s song, “Deadly Offside” [translated title] without their permission on a TV program and included the footage of the performance on their DVD.

Drug Record’s C.E.O Kim Woong argued, “when CNBLUE performed the song on Mnet’s music show “M! CountDown,” they used the original song which Crying Nut sang and performed, instead of doing a cover the song for which they received approval from the Korea Music Copyright Association.”

[VIDEO LINK] CNBLUE  performs Crying Nut’s Deadly Offside posted at MNET.com

“They also included the footage in their Japanese DVD released in August 2010,” Kim continued, “this was done without our explicit permission.”

Meanwhile, FNC Entertainment’s Han Sung-ho claimed that the original music source was provided by the show’s producers and that the DVD was published without the knowledge of his company.

“The ‘M! CountDown’ producers unexpectedly asked CNBLUE to sing the song with the instrumental accompaniment they prepared,” Han explained, “As a rookie band, they were in no such position to disobey the producers. They sang to the instrumental version but the members told the producers that the chorus was too loud after the performance.”

Han pleaded their innocence adding, “the DVD was issued by the copyright-holding company without our permission. We didn’t know about the publishing at that time and only found out about it afterwards.”

The C.E.O continued that, “Crying Nut and their agency are trying to smear our name with the lawsuit because they know what the broadcasting environment is like in Korea. They have already reached an agreement with the DVD company. We, as victims, are going to file a damage suit against Mnet and the DVD company for defamation.”

This marks the second controversy for CNBLUE involving the indie music scene after their first case in January 2010.

The group was embroiled in a plagiarism controversy after a Korean indie band, “Ynot?” claimed that CNBLUE`s debut hit “I`m a Loner” had copied the melody of their song “Bluebird“. CNBLUE became cleared of the charge in April 2011 by the court`s decision which stated that there is no melodic similarity between the two songs.

Article Credit | Source: tenasia.co.kr

UPDATE:

On February 15, 2013 early afternoon, FNC released an official statement regarding this issue thru posting a notice at their official site. Below is the translation of the notice.

First of all, thank you fans who always support and send great love to our artist.

We would like to express our deepest regret on the recent issue regardingCNBLUE.

Without excuse, we admit it is the agency’s fault that we let our signed artists go on stage without correctly confirming the music source during the hectic circumstances of the live music show. We also regret that we did not realize beforehand to react on time for the broadcasted portion to be released into a DVD without our intentions, causing the present issue. On behalf of the members, we sincerely apologize to the sunbae Crying Nut for causing them trouble through such a process.

We deeply sympathize with the raised concerns and we promise to strive to prevent such an incident from happening again. However, regarding the DVD, as expressed multiple times through the media and the network’s statement, we would like to clarify again that our agency did not participate in its commercial production.

Reflecting on this incident, we will try our hardest so that it will not happen again, and we will continue to do our best to foster live stages in music shows. We apologize again to our fans who are very concerned about this issue, and we will try our utmost to smoothly conclude this incident. We will take responsibility to the best of our ability.

Original Post: fncmusic.com
Translation by: justjyh.com