I found an interesting article online about the singer of Gangnam Style and his approach towards dealing with copyright. Apparently, “Psy’s relaxed attitude towards 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”. I think it’s interesting how his approach to copyright is so different from that of other artists. I also found it interesting how Psy makes a profit from his songs. He uses this relaxed attitude towards copyright infringement to gain the public’s attention, and then uses this attention as a direct pathway towards commercial production. This seems to be the norm in Korea as “it is television commercials that are the big money spinner for the most successful of North Korea’s K-pop stars”. I wonder why American singers seem to take such a different approach to making money and adhere so strictly to the copyright law.
Psy is the son of a rich, South Korean businessman. He doesn’t really need the money. It is also very good marketing, and marketing usually costs money. So having relaxed views on copyright infringement is kind of like paying for marketing because you are losing potential money you could have gained from selling the song and following the laws that are in place.
He is cleverly using social media and piracy to his advantage. For every time his song is downloaded illegally I bet at least a few people download it of itunes for $1.29