StreamMusic, a tenant company at the Korea Creative Content Agency’s CKL Corporate Support Center, has launched an “overseas royalty settlement and management service” for K-pop copyright holders, aiming to address growing challenges in managing rights as the global music market expands. The company said the service is designed to manage overseas royalty income more systematically and transparently.
As K-pop has spread globally, royalties have been generated through overseas streaming, concerts, broadcasting and licensing. But differing national copyright systems and settlement structures have made it difficult for individual rights holders to manage the process themselves. The industry has pointed to complex settlement chains involving intermediaries, limited access to data and delays in settlement as key factors reducing visibility into earnings.
StreamMusic said its service is built as a web-based “integrated management platform.” It combines contract management, a settlement dashboard and settlement processing in a single system, allowing rights holders to handle overseas royalty-related tasks in one place.
A key feature is expanded data access and transparency. Rights holders can view original settlement data directly, and the dashboard breaks down results by platform (including streaming and broadcasting), region, song and quarter. That allows users to see not only totals but also where revenue was generated, by country and platform.
The platform also adopts a “song-by-song contract structure,” rather than broad, bundled agreements. StreamMusic said this lets rights holders sign and manage contracts for individual works, enabling more flexible overseas distribution strategies and rights management for specific songs in an industry shaped by varied collaboration models.
Beyond viewing data, the service digitizes the process from contracting through settlement. After signing up, rights holders can complete contract execution, rights registration and settlement checks online, StreamMusic said, simplifying procedures that have often been handled offline.
The company said the system can also help rights holders recognize income faster. While overseas royalties have often taken significant time to appear as confirmed earnings, users can track settlement flows on an ongoing basis through the data-driven dashboard, which can also support financial planning.
Industry observers have described the launch as an example of the digital shift in global copyright management, as the scale and complexity of royalty income rise alongside the growth of the K-pop market.
Ryu Jihoon, CEO of StreamMusic, said, “Recovering overseas royalties is an important task to ensure K-pop copyright holders receive their rightful rights and income.” He added, “We will continue working to build an environment where rights holders can check and manage their royalties under more reasonable contract terms and a transparent settlement structure.”
The Korea Creative Content Agency said it supports the growth of content startups such as StreamMusic through the CKL Corporate Support Center, including tenant support and production support facilities.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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