It’s been about 10 days since a vast swath of Korean songs got yanked from Spotify. At the time, it was caused by the expiry of a license agreement between the streaming service and the distributor, Kakao. Today, both companies have announced that they’ve entered into a new agreement. Which means that many of the songs that were gone will be back.
Both Spotify and Kakao have sent out statements to that effect. That being said, nothing much of substance was shared beyond the boiler-plate lines of being glad that more people can now listen to more Korean music.
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Though it is worth noting that in the 10 days since the initial license expiry, Kakao has had a name change. Known previously as Kakao M, the company now goes by Kakao Entertainment. One can probably assume that this was what prevented the agreement renewal before the existing one expired.
For Spotify subscribers who are K-pop fans, this is no doubt good news. Particularly if you are fans of the artists whose songs were directly affected by this, such as SEVENTEEN, IU, Epik High, Sunmi and others. Assuming you haven’t moved on to another service for your music needs, that is.
