Meomuru AI Song Hits Melon No. 3: Is It Copyrightable?
A song whose singer is software is now the third most-played track on Korea's biggest streaming platform. "The Adult I Dreamed Of" by Meomuru, a rock ballad with vocals generated in the AI program Suno, was No. 3 on Melon's Top 100 at 3 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 14, according to The Korea Herald. TV Report put it at No. 3 again at 5 p.m. the same day.
Meomuru released the song on June 23, per TV Report. It entered the Top 100 at No. 18 on the morning of Oct. 2 and reached No. 3 on Oct. 13. The Korea Herald attributes the climb to heavy use of the track as background music in short-form videos on Korean social media. In the Herald's screenshot, only two songs sat above it: Soyeon's "I'm Gonna Toesa" and Rescene's "Love Attack."
The human role is narrow but real. According to the album description, Meomuru wrote the lyrics and directed the production, while Suno produced the voice. The creator has not hidden that. "To me, AI is a modern instrument and a partner that helps bring my imagination into reality," Meomuru wrote in a YouTube channel description. "I believe that while the tools may change, the stories do not."
The lyrics, in TV Report's quote, describe worries unknown in childhood that settle one by one on the narrator's shoulders. (The line is translated here from Korean.) The song's Korean title asks, "Have you become the adult you dreamed of?"
Listener reaction is split. Some say a human still owns the composition, lyrics and direction, so the AI voice is a minor issue. Others say they are uncomfortable with AI-generated music at all, and some want clear labeling whenever AI is involved, the Herald reports.
The chart position lands in a legal gap. Under Korea's current copyright framework, protection goes to human creative contributions, and material generated solely by AI cannot itself be copyrighted. In August, the Korea Music Copyright Association introduced criteria for registering AI-assisted works when a human played "a substantive and leading role," with creators required to disclose the tools used, how much they used them and what they contributed themselves. The association withdrew the criteria 22 days later. Critics said there was not yet social consensus and no objective way to split human and AI contribution.
A music industry official told the Herald that in complex workflows with repeated prompts and edits, measuring each side's share "can depend largely on what the creator chooses to disclose." Another official said the industry also has to decide how to protect existing artists whose work may have trained the AI systems.
Meomuru is not alone on the chart. "Forest of the Heart" by Joseon Hiphop ranked No. 89 on Melon's Top 100, per the Herald. A human wrote the concept and lyrics there, and AI handled composition and vocals.
For now, Melon's chart records what listeners streamed, not how the voice was made. With the registration criteria withdrawn, Korea has no agreed way to say how much of a hit like this belongs to the person who prompted it.
