Spotify Korea and Apple Music Korea can't beat KakaoM(Melon) (read: a certain J. Lee)

Spotify Korea was launched, but singers under KakaoM did NOT sign with it.

So Spotify Korea canNOT play songs from such artists.

I am sure KakaoM has a lot of fine artists, but it all comes down to a certain J. Lee.

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Although a certain J. Lee does NOT really promote outside of Korea, because of her control of Korean d-o-m-e-s-t-i-c market, she wields an inordinate amount of power compared to her nonexistence of influence outside of there, and her having sung only two Kpop songs in her entire career (and she did not sing the second one until last week).

This is a philosophical question -

Even an Emperor which rules the entire world is powerless against a local powerful, who might be powerless outsideof his (or, in this case, her) turf but is supreme within her sphere of influence. Only a massive intervention involving lots of resources might extract the local notable's power, and even after that the notable still has lots of ties in the turf and usually he (or, in this case, she) returns.

Because of her stranglehold in Korea, she is often seen in the same league with BTS, even though her international reach is significantly shorter.

And now Spotify Korea and Apple Music Korea are feeling her power.

It would be wiser for Spotify and Apple Music to NOT deal with her songs since KakaoM (read: J.Lee) is NOT giving its songs to Spotify Korea and Apple Music Korea, but the management of these companies still allow her songs to be played through their main server in USA.

So that will only embolden KakaoM and a certain J. Lee even further, which is unfortunate since they contribute significantly to Kpop still remaining domestic.

Quote from i9son

At first I was like who cares I don't even know who KakaoM is but then saw that IU is under them so yeah this sucks

KakaoM's power is significantly derived from her, and it helps Melon to maintain its stranglehold, its condoning of the cheaters whose low quality ballads plague KPop to this day, and its provincialism.

Quote from Kreatin

While IU's role in OP's post is overblown, there's some truth to it to gist of it; if spotify can't manage to secure a deal with kakao they will probably go the way of apple music, who even tho they got licenses for yg, sm and jyp etc went nowhere in four years.

Kakao's own artists is not the biggest problem, it is the fact that they are the largest distributor of korean music that is the main headache for spotify...

The reason for all of this is of course because of Melon, the biggest domestic music service is owned by Kakao. They have nothing to gain by helping the #1 music service in world get a foothold in their home turf.

The main reason people still stick with Melon is her.

Quote from oddol

she's not only on melon tho.

But only Korean sites and Melon is the largest so it gets the priority