Webtoon and Manhwa OST Covers: Licensing Rules Explained

Covering a webtoon or manhwa OST track is legal in most cases through the same mechanical licensing process used for any commercially released song, but only if the piece in question was actually released as a standalone musical work with registered rights — not every track played over a webtoon adaptation qualifies, and the distinction matters more here than in almost any other cover niche.

Webtoon and manhwa OSTs sit in an unusual middle zone between anime music, indie game scores, and web-series soundtracks. Some are fully licensed commercial releases with proper publishing registration. Others are background cues commissioned for a platform’s in-house player and never formally released as standalone works. Knowing which category a track falls into determines whether you can cover it at all.

Can you legally cover a webtoon or manhwa OST track?

Yes, if the track has been commercially released with identifiable songwriting and publishing credits, you can cover it using the standard mechanical licensing process — the same mechanism that lets anyone record a cover of a Billboard hit. The moment a composition has been distributed for sale or streaming, it becomes eligible for a compulsory mechanical license in the US, and equivalent licensing frameworks apply in most other major markets.

The complication is that a large share of webtoon background music is produced as work-for-hire scoring, delivered directly to the platform (Naver Webtoon, Kakao Piccoma, Tapas, and similar services) and never issued as a separate single or album. If a track only exists inside the webtoon’s built-in audio player and was never released through a distributor to stores and streaming platforms, there may be no public mechanical license path available yet, because there’s no registered release to license against.

How do you tell if a specific OST track is coverable?

Check whether the track appears on Spotify, Apple Music, or a similar platform under its own title with a listed composer or publisher — if it does, it’s a released work and can be covered through mechanical licensing. If the only place you’ve ever heard the piece is inside the webtoon reader itself, treat it as unreleased scoring music rather than a coverable song.

A useful three-step check before recording:

Search major streaming platforms for the track title plus the series name. Official OST albums are increasingly common for popular manhwa adaptations, especially ones that later got anime or drama tie-ins.
Look for a credited composer or label. Full metadata (composer, publisher, ISRC) is a strong signal the work has gone through formal registration and is licensable.
Confirm it’s an original composition, not a licensed stock track or a needle-drop of an existing song used temporarily in the webtoon — those carry separate rights held by a third party, not the webtoon publisher.

If a track passes all three checks, it’s functionally no different from covering any other released song, and mechanical licensing applies the same way.

Do Korean-origin OSTs require different licensing than US or Japanese ones?

The underlying principle is the same everywhere — you license the composition, not the original recording — but the administrative path can differ by territory. South Korean compositions are typically administered through KOMCA (Korea Music Copyright Association), and many popular manhwa OSTs are registered there even when the series itself is licensed internationally by companies like Webtoon Entertainment or Kakao. A distributor that handles mechanical licensing automatically removes the need for you to identify and contact the correct rights society yourself, which is one of the more tedious parts of covering internationally sourced music.

This is exactly the gap Globex Music’s built-in mechanical licensing closes: submit the cover, and the licensing side is handled as part of the release rather than requiring you to track down a foreign PRO on your own.

What about OSTs tied to webtoons that later got an anime or drama adaptation?

When a manhwa becomes an anime or live-action drama, the OST situation often gets more complex, not simpler. A new production company frequently commissions a fresh score or theme song for the adaptation, separate from the original webtoon’s background music, and that new material has its own publishing chain. Fan attention usually shifts to the adaptation’s theme song, and it’s easy to mistakenly assume the original webtoon composer holds those rights when a different studio or composer actually does.

Before covering a track associated with an adaptation, confirm which version you’re actually working from — the original webtoon cue or the adaptation’s rescored theme. They can share a melody but carry entirely separate copyright registrations.

What’s the actual cost and turnaround for releasing a webtoon OST cover?

Through Globex Music, releasing a licensed webtoon or manhwa OST cover starts at $1 per single, with mechanical licensing built into that submission rather than billed as an add-on. That’s a meaningful difference from competitors: TuneCore charges a base annual fee starting around $24.99 and adds separate per-cover licensing fees on top, while DistroKid runs $44.99/year regardless of how many covers you release. CD Baby charges $9.95 per single and keeps a 9% royalty commission on that release permanently, for as long as it stays live.

Moderation review for a properly credited OST cover typically moves quickly since the licensing check is standardized once metadata is accurate, and the release goes out to 200+ platforms worldwide. Royalty payouts start from $10 USD, and because niche fan communities around specific manhwa titles tend to stream loyally and repeatedly, a well-executed OST cover can accumulate payout-eligible earnings faster than a cover of a track with a much larger but more diffuse audience.

Key takeaway

The rule that matters most for webtoon and manhwa OST covers isn’t about the source medium — it’s about whether the specific piece of music was ever formally released as a standalone composition. Released tracks with credited composers are covered by the same mechanical licensing rules as any commercial song. Background cues that only ever existed inside a platform’s built-in reader are a different, unlicensable category until the rights holder issues them as an actual release. Checking that distinction first saves time, avoids takedowns, and keeps your catalog stable for the long run — which matters more than any single release, since a distributor with no annual fee means your back catalog keeps earning without a recurring bill attached to it.