Spotify removes hundreds of K-pop songs globally, unable to reach an agreement with Kakao M

[ricknemer]

@chriscooke95 I had no idea Pandora still existed. Holy cow. I haven't used that in many years.

 

[mokinga]

@resjudicata that's a hundred songs

 

[sacredchaos]

@pools I’m pissed BBIBBI by IU gets me going at the gym no cap.

Edit: I agree with you op. The kpop genre might not be as big as other genres in areas of the world, but the fan base is insanely passionate (look up how fans are quick to defend their favorite idols because of some weird conspiracy theory of their label not giving them enough lines in their newest single).

If they can’t listen to their favorite artists on Spotify they will find somewhere else to spend their time and money.

 

[asterwhelmed255]

@pools This will only hurt the kpop artists. No one is going to delete Spotify

 

[aldericus]

@pools Wow. I wondered why my kpop list seemed extra short/kept repeating the same songs. Spotify does that sometimes. Just checked and a good third of my over 300 songs are gone. Thankfully my favorites are mostly older bands and those are with a different label. I see four bands I love that have disappeared plus many other songs from different artists I had found in one of my recent new music searches.

While those of us who listen to kpop might be less obvious, we definitely stick with spotify for kpop since they do (did) have so many of our favorites. Amazon music didn't have a lot. Grooveshark had masses. Youtube has most. Personally I will wait it out to see if they regain access. If they don't I will probably switch back to youtube music for my commute.

As far as demographics go, we are a wide range of ages/demographics. I (46 yr old woman) have friends into kpop from 12 yrs old or so to 65 or so, and that is people I have met locally thanks to conventions. Most of us use spotify.

Would all of us leave? Not immediately, but we would definitely keep our eyes open for a better way to access our music. I personally have used many music services over the years and will continue to move to better services as they become available. I left spotify when I got into kpop and couldn't find any good music and came back when they added more kpop to their service.

 

[worshipcenter]

@pools It's worth noting that of the top ten most streamed kpop artists, nine are still on Spotify as they not distributed by Kakao M, although one group (Seventeen) had part of their discography removed, as they were distributed by Kakao M in the past.

 

[xxtrollbasherxx]

@pools BTS is still on Spotify, so it most likely wont affect them much, if at all.

 

[learningyourways]

@xxtrollbasherxx Not sure what indie-rock darling Built to Spill has to do with this, but I am also elated that Spotify finally got all their albums available to my country.

Jokes aside, I feel Spotify has recently done very well including a lot of music previously unavailable. Still, my music taste doesn't pull a lot of numbers, unlike Kpop so we'll have to see if it actually has an effect on its subscriber base

 

[aesoa]

@pools Ah, the classic, 'who will flinch first' scenario.

Who will cave first? Big tech, or korean entertainment company?

 

[turnip]

@pools This is a preview of the types of content wars that are going to come to streaming music services like Apple Music and Spotify in the years to come. We're used to this in the Cable TV industry where you suddenly loose access to CBS or Comedy Central because of a dispute, but artists on Spotify is new (to me at least).

 

[seeker1231]

@pools They went public too last year in Korean Stock Exchange.

 

[aclim]

@pools BTS and blackpink are still their and many other big artist. So only the small artist will suffer nothing really changes.