Court says song containing alcohol-related phrases unharmful

SEOUL, Aug. 25 (Yonhap) -- A local court ruled on Thursday that a K-pop song should not be labeled by censors as "harmful to juveniles" just because it contains alcohol-related lyrics.
The court ordered the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family to cancel its classification of a song as harmful material, ruling partly in favor of the complainant.
The ruling is expected to affect the ministry's planned revision of current censorship standards on domestic pop songs, criticized as being too strict.
"It is hard to hastily judge that a song being sold to minors is meant to encourage drinking simply because its lyrics contain such phrases as 'alcohol' or 'being drunk'," Judge Ahn Cheol-sang of the Seoul Administrative Court said in a verdict.
SM Entertainment, a leading local entertainment agency, filed the lawsuit in March, claiming the ministry's excessively strict censorship standards may infringe upon musicians' freedom of expression.
The move came after the ministry labeled a popular song on the agency's compilation album as harmful material, citing such alcohol-related expressions as "(I) want to be drunk in order not to miss you" and "I dream when I fall asleep drunk."
In the ruling, the court recognized that the song used these expressions to effectively describe the pain of breaking up with a lover.
By law, a music album classified as being "harmful" is banned from being sold to those younger than 19 years old and being aired on TV and radio before 10 p.m. every night.
sshim@yna.co.kr