Cho Yong-Pil, Copyright issue of his own songs

flickr.com|photo credit holy900

Cho Yong-pil is one of the best Korean singers and he gave strong influence on Korean pop history.  His songs including "Return to Busan Port", "Dear Friend" and "The Lady Outside the Window" were huge hit from 1960s to 1990s and copyright of his songs became a huge issue recently.

In 1986, the record company and he had a contract. It had a clause that the company got copyright of his songs which included the right to reproduce and distribute. Cho Yong-pil didn’t know well about the meaning of ‘copyright’ and the clause at that time, so he has paid the royalties for his own songs.

After he noticed the problem of the contract, he filed a lawsuit in 2000 to get his rights back. But the Supreme Court ruled that he should stay on the agreement he made in 1986. Fans are very upset about this issue and they want him to have his copyright back. 

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