Techdirt. Stories filed under "psy"

Psy Makes $8.1 Million By Ignoring Copyright Infringements Of Gangnam Style

Glyn Moody — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 10:15:00 PST

A couple of months back, Mike wrote about how Psy's relaxed attitude to people infringing on his copyright helped turn Gangnam Style into one of the most successful cultural phenomena in recent years, and that includes becoming the most-viewed video on YouTube ever.

Ah yes, the maximalists will retort, this free-and-easy, laid-back approach is all very nice, but it doesn't put food on his table, does it? If you want to make a living from this stuff, you've got to enforce copyright to stop all those freeloaders ruining your business. Well, maybe not:

With one song, 34-year-old Park Jae-sang -- better known as PSY -- is set to become a millionaire from YouTube ads and iTunes downloads, underlining a shift in how money is being made in the music business. An even bigger dollop of cash will come from TV commercials.

From just those sources, PSY and his camp will rake in at least $8.1 million this year, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of publicly available information and industry estimates.

The AP story quoted above goes on to give a detailed breakdown of where that money comes from. Interestingly, it's mostly from things not directly connected with either his music or video: It is television commercials that are the big money spinner for the most successful of South Korea's K-pop stars. PSY has been popping up in TV commercials in South Korea for top brands such as Samsung Electronics and mobile carrier LG Uplus.

Chung Yu-seok, an analyst at Kyobo Securities, estimates PSY's commercial deals would amount to 5 billion won ($4.6 million) this year.
This is yet another great example of how artists can give away copies of their music and videos to build their reputations and then earn significant sums by selling associated scarcities -- in this case, appearances in TV commercials. Now, not every musician may want to take that route, but there are plenty of other ways of exploiting global successes like Gangnam Style -- none of which requires copyright to be enforced.

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Psy Elects Not To Go Legal Over Gangnam Style Restaurant

Timothy Geigner — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 11:40:24 PST

Weeks ago, Mike explored the cultural blitz surrounding the song/video Gangam Style and its creator, Korean pop sensation Psy. One of the themes of the article was how Psy's seeming permisiveness for the internet community's repurposing of his song to spread the fun around resulted in something of a turbo-charge effect on its popularity. It turns out that this understanding of how digital culture can help spread an artist's popularity wasn't a one time thing for Psy.

Recently, a Korean restaurant in Los Angeles closed up shop for a few weeks as it changed its name to Gangnam Style, without even attempting to get Psy's permission, obviously looking to build their business on the song's popularity. While one might cringe at the expected legal result of the use of the song's title, you can safely un-cringe; Psy not only isn't going after the owners of the restaurant, he loves what they did.

"Gangnam Style" singer Psy will NOT sue an L.A. restaurant for naming itself after the famous song -- in fact, Psy's pumped ... because as far as he's concerned ... imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

The restaurant never bothered to get Psy's permission to use the name -- but sources close to the singer tell TMZ, he doesn't give a crap ... because where he comes from, imitation is a form of honor.

The larger point being that there's no harm from the restaurant's move and the possibility for further cultural penetration. While I appreciate Psy's inaction legally, I would actually suggest he go a step further and embrace the restaurant by reaching out and working directly with them. Why not have his music playing there? Why not have CDs or merchandise available for purchase, with some kind of agreement worked out with the restaurant? Not obstructing is wonderful, but I would suggest more collaboration by the artists to further their monetization and success. Why the hell not?

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Gangnam Style Shows What Can Happen When You Don't Lean On Copyright

Mike Masnick — Tue, 2 Oct 2012 13:00:37 PDT

Unless you've been living under a rock the past few weeks, you're by now aware of Gangnam Style, the meme/song/video/dance craze/pop culture phenomenon by Korean pop star Psy, that was kicked off with this video, but has become much, much, much more. Of course, there have been thousands of parody videos created, different versions of the song and a variety of other meme-related content. I was at a wedding a week and a half ago, and basically everyone there, including many of the "older generation," were well aware of the song and ready to do the dance when the DJ played it. It's basically everywhere. It's become so popular that, this week, an attempt to do the video without the music but adding back in the "natural" sound effects, is pushing 6 million views all by itself.

Oh yeah, and the song is doing quite well on the charts as well. The song is currently at number 2 on the Billboard charts, but has recently hit number one in 10 countries, including the UK and Australia. Down in Australia, for the publication TheVine, Tim Byron explores the cultural phenomenon and notes that this appears to be the first song that started as a meme that made it to number one on the charts. Other songs have charted and then became memes, or were memes that charted -- but not as high.

But, then, in the middle of the discussion, Byron makes a really interesting point:

One of Psy's cannier moves has apparently been to waive copyright on 'Gangnam Style' so that anybody can use the music and the video as they like. Most of the social media response to 'Call Me Maybe' is basically different ways to say 'this song is really catchy'. Once 'Call Me Maybe' truly became a famous meme, the meme was largely specifically about how catchy it was. 'Gangnam Style' is different. The social media response to 'Gangnam Style' is largely about absurdity, about the surrealism of the song and the video, not really about music for music's sake. 'Gangnam Style' has become an event. It's a piece of shared cultural currency which can be taken as known in a world which is increasingly nicheified.

I don't know if Psy or his label has actually done anything explicit to say that he's "waived" his copyright on Gangnam Style, but it is clear that he's been perfectly happy to have tons of folks make their own versions, edit the video and much much more. Each one of those things only seems to drive much more attention to the original, which only helps Psy out even more.

So, even if it's not really true that he's "waived" the copyright on the song or video, can anyone honestly argue that copyright has had a significant hand in the Gangnam Style cultural phenomenon? If anything, it's the fact that everyone ignores the copyright that has made it such a big deal. A large percentage of those derivative works and videos almost certainly "infringe" upon the copyright of both the song and the video. And yet each and every one of those "infringements" has probably helped Psy. You'd be hard pressed to find a single case where it has hurt him.

Hell, just imagine a world in which everyone making those response videos would have needed to get permission from Psy or his label. Does anyone think that, under those circumstances, it would be the same sort of cultural phenomenon today? Obviously, there's no way it would be anywhere close to as big.

In other words, whether or not Psy waived his copyrights, it's difficult to argue that copyright has had anything to do with his success with Gangnam Style and it seems clear that it is the fact that most people ignored copyright that has helped spread the song and video so far and wide.

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