Artificial intelligence-generated music has reached South Korea’s mainstream charts, forcing the country’s music industry to confront difficult questions over copyright, royalties and what should count as human creativity.
“Forest of the Heart,” released in May by YouTube creator Joseon HipHop, became an early example of AI-assisted music breaking into Melon’s Top 100. The track peaked at No. 89 on the weekly chart and No. 99 on the daily chart before later dropping out. Its creator wrote the lyrics but used the generative AI platform Suno to produce the melody and vocals.
The song’s brief chart run has become significant because it showed that AI-assisted music can attract mainstream listeners even while South Korea is still working out how such works should be classified and compensated.
The Korea Music Copyright Association, or KOMCA, attempted to address the issue in August by allowing certain AI-assisted works to be registered when humans had contributed to areas such as lyrics, composition or arrangement. Music produced solely through prompts without meaningful human creative input was excluded under the proposed approach.
However, the rules lasted only 22 days. After criticism that the issue had not received sufficient public discussion, South Korea’s Culture Ministry asked for broader consultation. KOMCA subsequently withdrew the rules and cancelled registrations made during the brief period.
That has left a major question unresolved: how much human creativity must be involved before an AI-assisted song can qualify for copyright-related royalty collection?
South Korea already maintains that AI output without human creative input cannot receive copyright protection, but there is still no detailed standard defining the amount or type of human contribution required for music created with generative AI.
The scale of the issue is also becoming clearer. South Korea’s Board of Audit and Inspection said 29 composers submitted more than 200 songs each to KOMCA in 2024, with roughly 5,200 of those works showing signs of generative AI use.
Detection is another challenge. Six major Korean music organisations are working toward jointly adopting an AI-music detection system, but industry officials acknowledge that identifying music created partly with AI can be difficult.
The problem becomes even more complicated when AI is used for only one part of production. A song may contain human-written lyrics but AI-generated vocals, or human composition combined with AI-assisted arrangement. Determining exactly where human authorship begins and ends could affect who receives royalties and how works are registered.
South Korea is now holding broader discussions involving lawmakers, copyright experts, music organisations, streaming platforms and AI-detection companies. A government-backed forum scheduled at the National Assembly is focused specifically on copyright, licensing and standards for determining human creative contribution. Further discussions are expected to examine how royalties from AI-assisted music should be divided.
The debate is also unfolding internationally. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry has introduced principles for AI-developed recordings appearing on official charts, including requirements that authorised AI services be used, that recordings remain substantially human-made and that there be no evidence of chart manipulation. The framework is also being extended through IFPI’s national network, including South Korea’s Circle Chart.
For Korea’s music industry, the challenge is no longer theoretical. AI-assisted tracks are already reaching listeners and appearing on major charts, while the rules governing authorship, royalties, disclosure and chart eligibility are still being developed.
The next stage of the debate could determine not only how AI-created music is paid for, but also how South Korea defines the boundary between technology-assisted creativity and music made primarily by machines.
