Earlier today (15th January) K-Pop fans came upon an issue
on YouTube that kicked up a frenzy – several K-Pop music videos could not be accessed due to copyright claims.
Several Indian K-Pop fans were amongst the first to take to Twitter with screenshots of music videos that appeared to be deleted due to a copyright claim by Aiplex Software Private Limited.
The videos which were affected included BTS‘ ‘Singularity‘ and ‘N.O‘, BLACKPINK‘s ‘DDU-DU DDU-DU‘, Jennie‘s ‘SOLO‘, TWICE‘s ‘Likey‘, ‘Like Ooh-Ahh‘ and ‘Yes or Yes’.
At approximately 18:30 PM IST all videos were restored with their views and likes intact, much to the relief of worried fans.
[Screenshot at 18:00 PM IST: BTS’s ‘Singularity’ appeared as ‘deleted’]
[Screenshot at 18:00 PM IST: Opening the deleted video revealed the copyright claim]
A quick Google search brings you to Aiplex Software’s website which states that they are a company headquartered in Bangalore, India. Their ‘Corporate Overview’ page states that the company was – “founded in 2003 as an IT Services and outsourcing organization to deliver business solutions ensuring a level of certainty & commitment to its clients“.
As of now, it is unclear why the company would falsely claim copyright over Korean pop music videos, but there have been several allegations that the company has done the same to several small YouTubers last year. In fact, an online petition that was started eleven months ago by a content creator named Saleef Shah to ban Aiplex from creating false copyright strikes on YouTube has become increasingly popular amongst K-Pop fans after today’s issue. At the time of writing, the petition has over 5,900 signatures.
A closer look at Aiplex’s ‘Corporate Overview’ also mentions that – “In 2008 the company identified the dearth in content protection domain & introduced online Antipiracy and Brand protection suite of solutions to Bollywood. It was during 2011 Aiplex internationalized its activities and incorporated Aiplex International S.A. in Brussels (Belgium) to cater services across the globe.”
The company’s website also claims that the “world’s best entertainment companies / corporations rely on Aiplex” to safely conduct business with its “comprehensive suite of content protection solutions“.
With their company claiming online piracy and brand protection to be their forté, fans are growing increasingly skeptical over the whole issue as the claimed copyrights by Aiplex are of videos posted by the companies that founded the affected K-POP groups and hence there should not be any violation of copyright.
Indian K-Pop fans are also notably upset that an Indian company is responsible for it and they hope that this issue is resolved at the earliest so as to avoid any conflict or issue with the K-POP community.
