CJ E&M sued for $50 million over copyright infringement in the U.S.

We would know that there are tons of K-pop fans in the United States, and several ways to legally buy K-pop songs online through American sites. But apparently there are loopholes to buying these K-pop songs for much cheaper, or even getting them for free.�

That's the problem Korean music agency DFSB Kollective�has with the Korean entertainment and media conglomerate�CJ E&M and CJ E&M America.

After obtaining California court documents, The Korea Herald reported that CJ E&M is being sued by DFSB Kollective for a $50 million lawsuit which was filed with the Central District Court of California. The charges are for large-scale copyright-related violations, which include copyright infringement and for submitting false copyright management info on hundreds of K-pop songs. It's said to be the biggest music copyright infringement case (based on monetary damages sought) in the United States in all of this year.

DFSB Kollective, the plaintiff, said they had international distribution rights hundreds of K-pop songs by registering on behalf of Korean artists.

DFSB Kollective has the legal rights to sell K-pop songs on digital sites, like iTunes (for 99 cents to $1.29 U.S. per download), and they are sold on these sites. But the problem is that international users, including people in the United States, were able to access Mnet.com and buy the same K-pop songs there for much cheaper (around 10 cents each) or in some cases, even download them for free. This negatively affects sales and profit from DFSB Kollective and there's also the issue with copyright infringement.

Not only that, but the plaintiff says the defendant has provided wrong copyright credits and altered registration codes to K-pop songs which play on Beats Music, which is now owned by Apple. The plaintiff says this goes against the content management information under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). DFSB Kollective is being represented by�Browne George Ross LLP, a California based law firm who previously represented Kanye West and Kim Kardashian.

According to CJ E&M, the complaints are not true and they will "fight against them without compromise until we are proven innocent." CJ E&M says that back in 2011, they blocked downloads from Mnet.com to international users.

As for Beats Music, CJ E&M says they have an exclusive distribution contract with them as of last year, and there is no irregularity in the distribution. CJ E&M also accuses DFSB Kollective for bringing back up a case that was already settled in Korea back in 2012.

The court rejected CJ E&M's motion to dismiss the case, and a jury trial is set for March 1, 2016.

Of course, this also affects the musicians themselves. After finding out that their albums were available on Beats Music, the lead singer of an indie band stated, 'We are too powerless to fight against them to protect our creative work."

There are step-by-step tutorial videos from 2011 that can be found online that teaches international users on how to register and stream music on the Mnet site. This would be a bit�contrary to the "technical errors" that CJ E&M claims which allowed such downloads to occur.