Crying
Nut responded to CNBLUE and
FNC
Entertainment‘s official apology.
As a quick recap, Crying Nut filed a lawsuit against CNBLUE because the idol
band previously performed Crying Nut’s “Offside” on
‘M!Countdown‘ back in 2010 and the recorded performance was
later included in their DVD released in Japan. However, Mnet
had stepped forward to say they would be taking responsibility for
the lawsuit. Crying Nut responded by asking Mnet to not interfere in their lawsuit against CNBLUE. FNC
Entertainment and CNBLUE then issued a formal apology on their website.
The following is Crying Nut’s official statement.
Hello. We are Crying Nut. First, we are sorry that we are greeting you with
unhappy news.
We seriously reflected about the problem between Crying Nut and CNBLUE,
working hard to look at the situation without clouded judgement or bias. We are
carefully writing this post. First, let us make it clear that we have no bad
feelings towards CNBLUE and we do not want to use them in any way.
The situation started two years ago in the fall of 2011, where we received a
phone call from a large company. They asked us if they can use CNBLUE’s live
cover version of Crying Nut’s “Offside” because CNBLUE was releasing a DVD in
Taiwan. We were confused by the random question, but we politely refused. We
said that the live copy was fine, but politely refused the footage use in a DVD.
We thought that was the end of it.
But we later heard that our song was used in a DVD released in Japan, and we
were severely offended. And we also saw the video on YouTube by
chance, and we heard our instruments and voice in the live version. They used
our AR (All Recording or Original Recording), we saw the DVD and our pride was
completely hurt, and we looked up if it was OK to do so under copyright and
neighboring copyright laws. After that, we took legal measures.
We learned the problem with the broadcast along with the DVD production and
distribution was with the broadcast station and the large company. While the
copyright and the neighboring copyright problems were with CNBLUE.
We already took up the issue with the large company and received an official
apology. And we wanted to also receive an apology from CNBLUE on the copyright
issue.
But we thought that if there was another similar incident to occur in the
future and the end result was just receiving an apology, another such damaging
incident could occur. And if there was no legal precedence set, we also thought
that powerless indie bands could have extremely unfair harm bestowed upon them
if something like this occurred again in the future. Also because CNBLUE had a
plagiarism issue before with the indie band ‘xxx’, we had to take time to
accurately prepare legal measures.
We are clearly stating that our aim is not noise marketing through lawsuits
with CNBLUE, or to stop a popular band’s future because of money.
What Crying Nut wants to say is that matters of ‘copyright and neighboring
copyright’ should not be so easily overlooked, but should be closely looked at
with a resolution. If a band used the Beatles‘ AR and just used
it for broadcast and commercial matters, do you think the situation would be the
same?
We do not think that it is a such a matter where you can just simply say, ‘We
lipsynced since we were rookie musicians and we were told to do so by the
broadcast station. Why are you being so narrow minded and picking on us for
something like that, sunbaenim!’ and to leave it alone.
They lip and hand-synced to another song’s AR and even released a DVD. We
thought it was unprofessional and could not understand it when they tried to
appeal to our emotions by telling us that they had no other choice because of
the broadcast station. We had a lot of different thoughts, such as ‘Maybe we
looked easy because we are an indie band?’ or ‘Maybe they don’t know enough
about copyright matters?’.
We then saw CNBLUE’s official apology. We felt a little better and realized
CNBLUE was also suffering, and we honestly had a lot of mixed emotions. But we
also felt a bit bitter about the apology. We saw an article saying that they
apologized sincerely and that they would try to stop another situation from
happening……. But they didn’t say how they were going to make an effort to stop
it from happening. The reason why we took legal measures is to stop a
re-occurrence so no future artist can be harmed. (Honestly, we wish there would
be a good alternative.)
We spoke the truth to a large company and confidently gained our rights. And
they acknowledged their wrong doing, so we were able to find a middle ground. We
are also telling CNBLUE the truth and we are looking for our rights. It is okay
if we are told that we have a double standard, or if we’re called narrow-minded
sunbaes? We are just telling the truth and we want to find our rights and our
honor.
We do not want to hurt anyone and we also don’t want to get hurt, this is the
mindset of indie band Crying Nut.
Also, the legal compensation we would get from CNBLUE will be deposited to
our legal firm to be donated for the copyrights in order to help grow the indie
scene.
We heard that CNBLUE were also once an indie band in Japan. What is ‘indie’?
Simply, it is ‘independence’? They create their own music, produce in their
system, and distribute through a pretty independent method. The most important
thing is to have full responsibility over their products and actions. ‘Indie’ is
not marketing. It is a full mindset. We do not believe that wrongdoings should
be avoided when you are part of an independent movement but had no choice
because someone with power told you to simply do so.
‘One truthful stroke’ can change the world. From Crying Nut.
