Kakao M issued a statement in response to Spotify’s allegations about the expiration of its global licensing agreement.
On March 1, Spotify made an official statement explaining why hundreds of K-pop releases suddenly disappeared from the platform. The company said that, despite its best efforts in the past year and a half, it has not been able to successfully renew its global licensing agreement with Kakao M, leading to the removal of all songs distributed by the major Korean label.
However, later that same morning, Kakao M countered with its own statement, in which it states that Spotify was the one who chose not to renew its agreement, even after a request from Kakao M.
The company also clarified that it was still in the middle of negotiations on whether its catalog would be made available on the South Korean version of Spotify – and that the termination of its global licensing agreement had been entirely separate and unrelated. Spotify also supported this particular statement in its own statement earlier in the day.
“Not related to our pre-existing global licensing agreement with Spotify, Kakao M has been negotiating separately with Spotify regarding a domestic contract for the supply of music,” said Kakao M. “Not related to the domestic contract, which we are still in negotiating, we separately received notice of the expiration of our license on February 28, and requested that we renew our existing global agreement. “
“Due to Spotify’s policy that they should proceed with domestic and global contracts at the same time, our global contract has now expired,” they continued. “At the moment, we are continuing our negotiations on the supply of music.”
Read Spotify’s statement on the matter here.
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