Spotify confirms Kakao M tracks were removed due to license expiration on March 1st

    Quote from bartkun

    when you are extending any license or contract agreements it usually means that you will earn more from it than with previous deal, so apparently Spotify as rich company couldn't put proper offer on the table

    Um, no? That's not at all how contracts work. A contract is an agreement between two parties, there's no obligation to increase any kind of deal for a second contract or sign for terms that are unfavorable. Many contracts for major companies get renewed routinely at the same rate. Ideally both sides come to an agreement, but in this case Kakao M took its ball and went home, probably because they didn't want to let spotify compete on a semi-even playing field with Melon, which they own. So the global deal expired and now KaKao are having to deal with international fans upset about the music loss (and artists announcing they're disappointed). They'll probably renew it eventually, I doubt Kakao anticipated how much this was going to blow up, especially if they're used to dealing exclusively with Melon.

  • AllKill VIP
    Quote from aristophenes

    Um, no? That's not at all how contracts work. A contract is an agreement between two parties, there's no obligation to increase any kind of deal for a second contract or sign for terms that are unfavorable. Many contracts for major companies get renewed routinely at the same rate. Ideally both sides come to an agreement, but in this case Kakao M took its ball and went home, probably because they didn't want to let spotify compete on a semi-even playing field with Melon, which they own. So the global deal expired and now KaKao are having to deal with international fans upset about the music loss (and artists announcing they're disappointed). They'll probably renew it eventually, I doubt Kakao anticipated how much this was going to blow up, especially if they're used to dealing exclusively with Melon.

    I must be used then to how this works in sports world here in Poland because any renewal means more money for club, player, etc.


    for example if some tv channel wants to air football/soccer games when one deal is ending then they need to put more money on the table to win battle for the rights.


    Same with MMA fighters they have deals for four fights, and if one or another organization wants to renew a deal when fighter is doing well then they also need to upgrade the contract.


    Same thing usually goes for loaning office spaces etc. there will always be at least 5-10% price upppp

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    Quote from bartkun

    hahaha so it's spotify fault lol...

    Both companies are to blame for this. Two multibillion dollar companies that can't agree on license deal because spotify demands to get license to all countries korea included and kakao refusing because they don't want a competing service to melon which they own..


    Literally fighting over pennies for them, meanwhile, the losers are the artists who unwillingly are no longer available on the biggest platform in the world, and for many, a big source of income was just lost without them having any say in it.


    The way contracts work in sports/tv and the way they work in various parts of the corporate world are very different animals, though. Annual or semi-annual re-ups with suppliers routinely even use the same paperwork, they just change dates (I know, I work at a law firm and we write them). Contracts for food suppliers can vary some (depending on weather, import/export prices and tariffs, etc), contracts for construction work are usually fairly stable unless you're building in an unusual location or something, and contracts for fixed goods like this (spotify pays a per-song/per-stream percentage rate) don't vary often at all, because you're paying basically by the piece. For every piece of music streamed, spotify pays a fee, and those fees usually don't vary much. You can look up on google how their fee structure works, they've been consistent.


    Contracts in sports are different because you can't really pay "by the piece", they're personnel contracts. So to some extent they're time based (if I work at my company for four years, I probably have the right to want a raise) and to some extent they're skill-based. They don't have the same logic as a piece-based system like spotify.

  • AllKill VIP
    Quote from Haolat

    The least they could do was give us a heads up earlier than this. :mads:

    They were probably trying to hash it out until the end, and nobody would budge. Let’s see who will blink first (my guess would be Kakao M).

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