A comparative analysis of the intersection between copyright law and antitrust issues in music licensing in South Korea and the United States: focusing on the law, cases and developments

Abstract

Ever since the advent of digital music, there have been varying viewpoints as to the usefulness of current music licensing landscape. Across the globe, streaming has drastically changed the way consumers listen and access music and we are consistently exposed to news headlines that reveal negative impacts on songwriters and their future livelihoods stemming from outdated licensing laws. In midst of this complex web of music licensing practice, is the roles of intermediaries, such as music related rights management societies. Calls for proper and efficient management in music copyright have centered around establishing a mechanism to raise the existing level of transparency (or lack thereof) and to enable distribution of royalties that is as real as possible to the creators. In this respect, antitrust law has played an important role to some extent in curbing the inherently monopolistic rights of the intermediaries to ensure that they are held accountable. However, the difficulties in accurately identifying and anticipating the kind of activities that would run counter to the goals of copyright law and antitrust law have posed a significant challenge in effectively protecting the rights of both the creators and to the users in public. In this thesis, a comparative analysis of the kinds of anticompetitive activities undertaken by the music intermediaries have been explored between South Korea and in the United States where the two systems reveal differing music ecosystem but nonetheless continue to face the problem of finding the most equitable balance between the rights-holders and users under the rubric of current copyright and antitrust laws and principles.