
Psy Makes $8.1 Million By Ignoring Copyright Infringements Of Gangnam Style - mtgx
http://www.techdirt.com/blog/casestudies/articles/20121209/07431921317/psy-makes-81-million-ignoring-copyright-infringements-gangnam-style.shtml
======
CamperBob2
Along the same lines, it's interesting that not only has Constantin Film
apparently stopped issuing DMCA notices on the _Untergang_ (Downfall) parody
videos, but some of the older ones that were previously DMCA'ed off of YouTube
seem to have come back. Maybe it finally occurred to someone at Constantin how
many viewers those unlicensed parodies have attracted to their excellent but
otherwise obscure movie over the past few years.

I posted one a couple of years ago, myself. It stayed up for about a year,
then was yanked in response to a DMCA complaint from Constantin. About a year
after that -- meaning just a few weeks ago -- I started getting notifications
of user comments again. The video had magically reappeared on YouTube with no
intervention or counterclaim on my part.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
Perhaps YouTube has a re-inclusion program?

~~~
chris_wot
I doubt it. That would most definitely violate the DMCA.

~~~
GigabyteCoin
What if the original DMCA complainant noticed negative results form the DMCA
and wished to reverse it?

Surely that would be possible.

------
w1ntermute
As explained on The Verge[0], the internet has been essential to the rise of
K-pop, and the K-pop industry is not nearly as strict about piracy as the
American music industry is.

0: [http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/18/3516562/k-pop-invades-
ame...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/18/3516562/k-pop-invades-america-
south-korea-pop-music-factory)

~~~
ineedtosleep
Though I'm not really riding on the South Korean wave, I have a huge amount of
respect for Korea's music labels (at least when it comes to how they release
their content).

If one takes a look at YouTube channels for the South Korean labels, the
videos the provide are almost always high quality -- both in terms of actual
video quality and content that they release (e.g. LOEN[1] and SMTOWN[2]).

On the other side of the sea, you have Japan. From the US side, it seems that
Japanese labels haven't been too generous with releasing their content
overseas. Universal Music Japan has been the only big label (IMO) that has
been great with releasing content. The other end of the spectrum, you have
Sony Music...and they've been pretty quick to bring down videos as well.

[1] <https://www.youtube.com/user/LOENENT/videos?view=0>

[2] <https://www.youtube.com/user/SMTOWN>

[3] <https://www.youtube.com/user/universalmusicjapan>

[4] <https://www.youtube.com/user/sonymusicnetwork>

~~~
w1ntermute
> On the other side of the sea, you have Japan. From the US side, it seems
> that Japanese labels haven't been too generous with releasing their content
> overseas.

As explained in this article by The Verge[0], the Japanese are still very much
tethered to physical media. They regularly rent/buy CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray
discs, for reasons discussed in the article, which has kept profits high in
the Japanese entertainment industry, compared to the West. _Physical_ album
sales have actually _risen_ 11% in Japan in 2012, compared to 2011[1].

This, combined with the Japanese market's size and the almost complete absence
of piracy there, has obviated the need for Japanese artists to embrace the
internet or market their products abroad. Korea, on the other hand, has a much
smaller population, and one for which piracy is a way of life. Korean artists
are thus forced to market abroad, and in fact get 80% of their profits from
Japan[1].

Among domestic Japanese groups, on the other hand, there has also been a
reliance on various gimmicks to boost physical single and album sales. For
example, AKB48, a girl pop group with dozens of members (originally 48 of
them), holds yearly elections ( _senbatsu_ ) to determine the order in which
the members are ranked. You get one voting code for each physical copy of a
particular single/album that you buy. There are crazy fans that will literally
buy thousands of copies of a single CD in order to repeatedly vote for their
favorite member, so that member wins[2,3].

0: [http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/15/3628376/japan-digital-
con...](http://www.theverge.com/2012/11/15/3628376/japan-digital-content-
ecosystem-hulu-country-future)

1: [http://seoulbeats.com/2012/12/worry-for-the-right-
reasons-k-...](http://seoulbeats.com/2012/12/worry-for-the-right-reasons-k-
pop-and-kohaku/)

2: <http://blog.livedoor.jp/kinisoku/archives/3425353.html>

3: <http://getnews.jp/archives/119107>

~~~
minikomi
AKB also built an empire on handshakes - buy the media, get a ticket to give a
girl a handshake.

~~~
w1ntermute
Yeah, one of the things that Akimoto Yasushi (the genius behind AKB48) did was
create an idol group with girls that have a more down-to-earth and
"accessible" image. They perform daily at a theater in Akihabara (the nerd
district in Tokyo), and after the performance you get to meet the girls. And
they supposedly have had no plastic surgery, which is supposed to contribute
to their accessible image in a country where plastic surgery is quite popular
in the entertainment industry (though many have said this is a lie and called
them 整形B48/Seikei-B48, a pun on their name using the word for plastic
surgery).

------
jamesmcn
Devil's advocate: where do you draw the line?

MIT did a Gangnam style video, did they pay Psy for the right to do so?

If BMW were to do a Gangnam style video, surely Psy would expect to be paid,
right?

Why BMW and why not MIT?

We are in a liminal period where copyright is sometimes enforced, and
sometimes not. Social pressure and business inertia causes some people to play
by the rules. Risk taking, greed, and ignorance causes other people to not do
so. Where this ends up is anyone's guess, but it isn't likely to stay this way
for long.

[That said, I'll reiterate my previous comment about record labels who bring
hundred-million-dollar suits against their fans: fuck them.]

~~~
shin_lao
Parody is considered to be "fair use". Commercials aren't.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Fair_use_and_parody>

Actually copyright laws were pretty clear, we just had massive regression due
to intense lobbying of greedy entities.

~~~
tmh88j
>Parody is considered to be "fair use". Commercials aren't.

How about when parodies generate money? Weird Al made millions doing that.

~~~
dschep
Regardless of fair use, Weird Al gets permission:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_al#Reactions_from_origin...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weird_al#Reactions_from_original_artists)

~~~
tmh88j
He didn't get permission from Coolio

>I ain't with that…I think that my song was too serious…I really…don't
appreciate him desecrating the song like that… his record company asked for my
permission, and I said no. But they did it anyway…

[http://splitsider.com/2011/12/gangstas-parodist-
revisiting-w...](http://splitsider.com/2011/12/gangstas-parodist-revisiting-
weird-al-vs-coolio/)

~~~
bjourne
Possibly because Gansta Paradise already is a poor version of Stevie Wonder's
Pasttime Paradise? Musicians borrow from each other, always have always will.

------
spin
From the article, some of his money comes from Youtube ads, which I don't
think would exist if it weren't for traditional copyright laws. (ie, Youtube
wouldn't be giving him a cut of the ad revenue if it weren't for copyright.)

Still... Kudos to him for not using draconian enforcement, yet still making
lots of money.

~~~
andrewflnr
Similarly, he wouldn't get any money from people making commercials without
copyright law. They would simply rip it off without asking.

~~~
njharman
The point is; no one would being paying anything unless it got so popular.
And, it was allowd to get so popular because no one pettily went after "small
fry" infringers. They let (encouraged probably) it go "viral". Let it be
mixed, shared, performed, Let it become part of our culture, almost in The
Commons.

And when it was good enough to be shared, massively, they reaped the just
rewards.

~~~
andrewflnr
Right, it's stupid to go after the small fry, but nor is this evidence that
copyright in general should be abolished, as some think. The balance is
somewhere in the middle.

------
marijn
Hah. Tried opening the Youtube link in Germany. Got "Unfortunately, this video
is not available in Germany because it may contain music for which GEMA has
not granted the respective music rights." The GEMA situation is completely out
of control here -- it often feels like half of Youtube is blocked, including
many things that obviously don't infringe.

~~~
akie
Install ProxMate or ProxTube to get around this.

------
zlotty
Note to self: it's as simple as creating the most popular YouTube video of all
time. Done and done. Say you're independent and have a decent hit -- 100,000
views. Earnings: $870.

~~~
Danieru
100,000 views isn't much. I think my silly videos of Sid Meier's
Railroads[1][2] have more than that.

These are things I put together in a day and edited in windows movie maker.
When youtube offered adding ads I ignored them thinking it would never amount
to anything. At $8.7 ECPM I feel absurd having skipped the chance!

For an independent band 1k means vital equipment and capital to sell fan
goods. For a "Let's play" gamer it means a better microphone and subsidizes
the cost of games.

Many large websites run on rates far lower, and those have to provide their
own traffic.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYgCwYfVkQ8&list=UUQ7Hrh...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYgCwYfVkQ8&list=UUQ7Hrhc5iE7qzLldCKGdU9w&index=9)
[2] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUXL-
zua9ho&list=UUQ7Hrh...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUXL-
zua9ho&list=UUQ7Hrhc5iE7qzLldCKGdU9w&index=10)

~~~
gabemart
>These are things I put together in a day and edited in windows movie maker.
When youtube offered adding ads I ignored them thinking it would never amount
to anything. At $8.7 ECPM I feel absurd having skipped the chance!

Presumably, you would not be able to show ads on those videos because they use
IP you don't have the rights to. They're popular (again, presumably) because
people search for footage of those copyright games and enjoy the first
copyright music track. It's fairly easy to put something together "in a day"
that becomes popular when you're not constricted by the rules of copyright and
can piggyback on the popularity of existing content. I'm not criticizing - I
have a viral video on youtube that's within spitting distance of a million
views, but I would never be able to show ads on it because I don't have
permission to use the footage or the music.

And yes, it seems that presently _most_ video games companies _generally_ turn
a blind eye to people posting footage from their games. But you'd be foolhardy
indeed to start to rely on advertising revenue that was built entirely on the
goodwill of a diverse group of for-profit companies. There are a host of semi-
and fully-professional video game personalities whose livelihood could be shut
down overnight if a few companies decided to enforce their copyrights.

------
mxxx
The article implies that if you just let anybody infringe on your copyright
and play/use your work however they feel, it'll pay off in the long run
because you gain exposure.

Seems like a _reasonable_ assumption, but I don't really think that PSY is a
good example. They mention he's been hired to do ads for Samsung, etc, but is
that really a feasible endgame for the majority of artists? Quite apart from
the fact that 0.00001% are going to ever be _asked_ to appear in commercials,
how many would actually want to? Not exactly a shining example of artistic
integrity, is it?

I feel like they're kind of clutching at straws here, probably because
articles like this are so popular with readers - have a browse through the
comments to see how much everybody enjoys sticking the boot into the record
companies.

Anyway, good for him. It's nice to hear that there are other ways to be
successful, I suppose.

------
beerglass
As a counterpoint, this letter from songwriter Tom Waits written over 10 years
ago is a solid rebuttal to the practice of artists making money from
commercials while giving away their copyrights for free. Here it goes -
<http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/12/its-virus.html>

~~~
belorn
Tom Waits sounds awful close to John Phillip Sousa testament before the US
Congress 1906 if you swap talking machines with songs in commercials.

~~~
illuminate
"When I was a boy . . . in front of every house in the summer evenings you
would find young people together singing the songs of the day or the old
songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not
have a vocal cord left. The vocal cords will be eliminated by a process of
evolution, as was the tail of man when he came from the ape”"

I really don't see how. Waits is making an appeal to art and integrity, Sousa
is decrying the act and presentation of mechanical reproduction.

------
mtgx
Wasn't there a lot of "innovation" in jazz in the early days when it was very
popular, because no one copyrighted their jazz songs? I remember watching
something about this. I might've seen it in one of the Everything is a Remix
videos:

[http://www.everythingisaremix.info/everything-is-a-remix-
par...](http://www.everythingisaremix.info/everything-is-a-remix-part-1/)

~~~
laumars
There's a similar case with dance (club) music. eg the "Amen Break":

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac>

------
tokenadult
The song industry includes singer-songwriters, and it also includes specialist
singers and specialist songwriters. A healthy industry will support people who
create music but who do not necessarily perform it in public performances.

~~~
npsimons
_A healthy industry will support people who create music but who do not
necessarily perform it in public performances._

That's your opinion, and you're certainly entitled to it, but it doesn't make
it true. While I don't want to discourage anyone composing/songwriting, keep
in mind that separate singers and songwriters are what gave us Britney Spears,
and the sheet music guild is at least as bad as RIAA (charging non-profit
performing charities per performance for sheet music they've already paid
for).

------
darushimo
This isn't a "new way" for artists to make money. This is how one-hit wonders
bank off their popular songs. Hasn't changed.

------
othello
Those $8.1 million did not come from Youtube advertisement: according to the
original AP article, only $870,000 did.

[https://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jlcpd0qGl...](https://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jlcpd0qGl9nCp3TCqM1DYdAgbzFQ?docId=b70ddece35724815a3fc351a7bb06c0b)

This estimate seems to be based on views for all of PSY's channel, i.e. 1.3
billion views. That works out as a $0.7 eCPM, which seems more credible than
the $8 floated below in this thread.

~~~
pixl97
"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. But for online music sales in
South Korea, he'll earn less than $60,000."

This is the important part of the article. He earns around US$0.00015 per song
sold in his own country via online sales. He earns a hell of a lot more via
Youtube and iTunes. What gets him up to 8M is other advertizing deals.

------
petrel
Microsoft Windows has already gone in same way. Piracy has actually made
Windows so popular and inevitable also. You can not ignore and you can not
live without Windows, atleast for now. Here in India, computing is a Windows
though the most of the PC are running on pirated Windows. Piracy has it won
benefits.

------
ladzoppelin
Gangnam Style is a horrible example of "... a shift in how money is being made
in the music business". Psy deserves every bit of it but the popularity of
that song is a freak incident.

~~~
scotty79
I think same can be said about almost anything vastly popular.

------
kyllo
Honestly, who (outside of Korea) would even buy an entire PSY record, though?
I don't think album sales are a very big revenue stream for such a novelty
act. Single-song downloads, advertisements, and talk show and event
appearances are of course where the money is at for him.

Nice to see that he isn't trying to "charge for smells" though.

------
kristopher
"Ignoring" might be too strong a word here. Licensing is in play, but they are
not going after individual infringers.

------
yeonhoyoon
making the downloading & sharing songs easier and earning profits from live
performances is the way to go for the music industry.

~~~
camus
ok , let me enjoy your work for free , you should be lucky i'm sharing it ?
let's apply that fact to developers then.

~~~
unfed
Umm would you also pay to watch my live coding session?

~~~
camus
if you are naked with 3 girls pouring some cream on you maybe ^_^ .

------
meerita
Just wait he rans out of money. Then it will become a copytroll :)

------
pretoriusB
> _Psy Makes $8.1 Million By Ignoring Copyright Infringements Of Gangnam
> Style_

Really? Why not:

"Psy Makes $8.1 Million DESPITE Ignoring Copyright Infringements Of Gangnam
Style"

~~~
tlianza
Or how about "Psy Makes ONLY $8.1 Million..."

Is this a lot of money for the most viewed video in the history of the
Internet and the most popular song worldwide?

~~~
pixl97
I'd say yes. In the bad old days, you only got to number 1 because of payola.
Chances of an unsigned Korean artist getting there. 0. He for sure did not fit
the boy band/pop star profile.

Now you can go from someone mostly unheard of to a global superstar outside of
traditional channels. Now, if you are already someone signed on a big label
and have a big name, then 8.1M may not be huge, especially for how popular it
was.

~~~
pretoriusB
> _In the bad old days, you only got to number 1 because of payola._

What old days? Dick Clark days? Because thousands of acts have been to the
number one in the 80's and 90's without payola, just emerging virally (either
as one hit wonders, or as more established artists).

> _Chances of an unsigned Korean artist getting there. 0._

That might be in the US. In the UK and Europe there were lots of cross-
cultural hits from unexpected sources, including third world and different
languages.

Heck, 8 million dollars is what a #1 single would cash in just in England back
in the day.

------
jQueryIsAwesome
Lets do the math: 800 million views for 8 million dollars; so to make $8.000
you need 800.000 Youtube views... this is in no way an example for other
artists; and "Gangman style" is a exception in music popularity grow, like
"Asereje", "Macarena", "Smells like teen spirit" or "Mambo #5" (is just that
YouTube didn't exist back then).

~~~
rgbrenner
800mil/8mil=100 views per $ so to make $8, you would need 800 page views

That's $10CPM, which is a very reasonable rate.

~~~
polshaw
Except the $8m figure included iTunes sales too.

Source: TFA.

------
madaxe
Surely if Psy condones piracy, the RIAA should be going after him with their
black helicopters, ricin umbrellas and polonium pills. Wait, I've confused
them with the NKVD, haven't I? Ah well, it'll do.

------
89a
Doesn't seem like much for something so huge

