

However, abstaining from enforcing copyrights does not automatically lead to public access to derivative works.

Quite on the contrary, to a large degree the success relies on effectively waiving copyright enforcement – with regard to both the distribution of the original video and the production and dissemination of parodies and remixes.

Obvisouly, Gangnam Style’s success does not depend on strict enforcement of copyrights. With regard to copyright and copyright markets, the Gangnam phenomenon is instructive in several regards. 1 on many national charts, including the UK and Germany.
#Pop song open gangnam style for free
In spite (or maybe to a certain degree: because of) being available for free online, the song reached No. Gangnam Style has not been the first but the by far most successful K-Pop hit in recent history. The British multinational grocery and retailer Tesco reported that its total sales of Korean food had more than doubled as a result of the popularity of “Gangnam Style”. In 2012, the South Korean government announced that “Gangnam Style” had brought in $13.4 million to the country’s audio sector. The viral success of Gangnam Style not only made Psy world-famous but had also further consequences, as is documented on the Wikipedia page on the “ Gangnam Style phenomenon“: And while the official version is blocked in the German YouTube version due to the ongoing copyright struggle between YouTube and the German collecting society GEMA (see “ Cracks in the Content Coalition“), there are some unblocked copies available at YouTube, as well besides, browser extensions such as YouTube Unblocker allow watching the original version even in Germany. The video “Gangnam Style” by the Korean rapper Psy is now the most-watched YouTube clip ever with about 870 million views and counting. This is a shortened and slightly altered English version of a German blog post at.
