The Korea Music Performers Association, known as KOSCAP, is facing scrutiny after allegations that it spent its budget loosely, including signing private contracts centered on companies run by relatives of an executive.
South Korea’s Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism said on the 20th that a 2025 inspection of KOSCAP and the Korea Society of Copyrights for Literary Works and Art found numerous shortcomings in compensation distribution and organizational operations.
The ministry said it selected three organizations through a public call to serve as copyright compensation recipients: the literary and arts copyright society, KOSCAP and the Korea Music Content Association. After reviewing their operations, it found multiple issues requiring correction, imposed corrective conditions and ordered the groups to undergo another review through a new call for applications in two years.
At KOSCAP, the ministry said it found many cases of improper spending and weak governance. Executive A, it said, recommended a company led by a sixth-degree relative for 2025 holiday gift purchases, and KOSCAP then signed a 22.77 million won private contract with that firm. The amount exceeded KOSCAP’s internal limit for private contracts by 770,000 won.
KOSCAP also signed an 11.3 million won contract with a travel agency where the same relative of Executive A worked while planning a 2025 staff workshop, the ministry said.
The ministry said KOSCAP spent 329 million won on vacation pay in 2025, averaging about 10 million won per person. KOSCAP’s vacation-pay rate has steadily increased, rising from 120% of base salary in 2013 to 210% in 2024. It also created four new allowances in 2025 without reporting them to the general assembly or board, including children’s tuition (2 million to 3 million won a year), meal allowance (100,000 won a month), communications allowance (50,000 won a month) and a youth housing stability allowance (100,000 won a month). About 96.25 million won was paid to executives and staff under those categories over the past year.
The ministry also said that while rules limit individual corporate cards to executives, KOSCAP appointed non-standing adviser B in October and signed a contract providing a monthly adviser fee of 5.7 million won, a corporate card with a 1 million won monthly cap for business expenses, and coverage under the four major social insurance programs. B charged 1,041,400 won in October alone, exceeding the limit, and the ministry cited cases of split transactions at the same location late at night.
Other findings included an unauthorized expansion of a prefabricated panel space on a KOSCAP-owned building and a renovation contract signed for about 25 million won more than the publicly announced amount, the ministry said.
At the literary and arts copyright society, the ministry said it found cases of overcollection involving works whose protection period had expired (five cases, including authors Sim Hun and Kim Yeongrang, totaling 630,000 won) and cases in which authors were misclassified and did not receive compensation for 10 years despite being members (two cases, totaling 240,000 won).
The ministry said it issued corrective orders to KOSCAP and the literary and arts copyright society, including demands for disciplinary action against responsible officials, corrections to improper spending and steps to prevent recurrence. As conditions for designation as compensation recipient organizations, it also required measures to curb wasteful management, establish conflict-of-interest prevention plans, lower management fee rates and reduce undistributed compensation funds.
* This article has been translated by AI.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.