Monday, March 1, 2021

Spotify removes hundreds of K-pop songs provided by Kakao M

The music streaming platform, Spotify, has removed hundreds of K-pop releases licensed by Kakao M.

Kakao M is known as the distributor of thousands of K-pop songs including hits by IU, MONSTA X, SEVENTEEN, LOONA, MAMAMOO, THE BOYZ, GFRIEND, (G)I-DLE, ASTRO, and more. However, songs distributed by Kakao M have been reportedly suspended from the global music platform.

Spotify users noticed that various K-pop songs were no longer available on the platform. This move has prevented global K-pop fans from listening to the songs of some of the major K-pop artists and groups on the said music streaming platform.

Spotify has just launched its music streaming service in South Korea last month, and it has been reported to have a heated competition against established homegrown services, including Kakao Corp.’s Melon, Genie Music under telecom operator KT Corp. and opposing carrier SK Telecom’s Flo.According to a report by NME, Kakao M’s catalog has been suspended to Spotify users worldwide due to the expiration of its license. Twitter user @lemonphobic has compiled some of the artists affected by the issue. Check out the tweet showing the list below.

artists that had their stuff on spotify deleted, a thread

wei
kim wooseok
the boyz
d1ce
bibi
minseo
iu
victon
pink fantasy
epik high
cherry bullet
oneus
e'last
cravity
giriboy
june
kim sunggyu
bae173
moonbyul
dpr live
wh3n
woo!ah!
hyolyn
code kunst
drippin
jannabi
jukjae

— ? (@lemonphobic) February 28, 2021

On the other hand, artists signed under SM, YG, JYP, and BigHit Entertainment (excluding BigHit Labels) have been reported to be not affected by the removal. Meanwhile, fans have also remarked that artists are losing massive amounts of streams on Spotify due to the removal issue.

Sources: NME, Yonhap

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