He says, 'Music streaming fraud is only hurting K-pop.'

(Music Streaming Fraud, literally translated into Music Hoarding, is the act of paying brokers to stream songs on music sites at mass levels, resulting in an unfair rise to the top spot in online music charts. From here on the writer respectfully requests that, for the purposes of this article, the aforementioned definition be understood as 'music hoarding.')

YG Entertainment, SM Entertainment, JYP Entertainment, and Star Empire, the four major music production companies, have come together to request the Seoul Central District Prosecutor's Office to open an investigation of music hoarding. It's as if they're throwing a direct hit to music hoarding, which, until now, has existed only as rumors.

To be honest, YG, SM, and JYP (dubbed the 'Big 3') aren't really affected by music hoarding. This is because the revenue they earn from concerts and other music content sales far exceeds the revenue they earn from song sales. Because they are companies that rely more on the activity aspect of the music industry, there isn't much interference for them in operating their companies.

Despite this fact, why is the Big 3 stepping forward on this issue? YG representative Yang Hyun Suk named three reasons. Music hoarding prevents fair competition. It discourages the creators.  And it puts a vicious cycle on content investment, damaging music quality.

On August 7, Yang Hyun Suk called 'Dispatch' and said, 'From a long-term perspective, music hoarding is a huge threat to the K-pop music market. Those who make music will most definitely suffer damage. In a market where music ranks are bought by money, fair competition is impossible.'

First of all, he mentioned his concern for the honest musician. According to him, a lot of musicians suffer from music hoarding. The music creator can only feel despair and hopelessness in facing the fact that, no matter how great your music is, your song won't rank high on the music charts if you don't 'hoard music.'

Yang Hyun Suk said, 'In the music world there are a lot of talented musicians. However, ever since music hoarding came to be, it has become a widespread perception that 'if you don't have money, you'll be at a disadvantage.' He continued, 'Since the ranks are rigged, the creators will always suffer losses, even if they make great music.'

Music hoarding leads to inhibition of music development. Instead of focusing on the quality of the contents, companies are worried about how they will pay for music hoarding. A music hoarding broker's fee is rumored to be an estimate of about 300-500 million Won (roughly converted to $270,000-$450,000). Then of course the money that would normally go into creating the song goes into music hoarding instead. As a result, there is no other outcome but a decrease in music quality.

Representative Yang said, 'Even if someone cheats their way to the number one spot through music hoarding, the tampered profit-structure yields very little return. This creates a vicious cycle. Revenues are supposed to be used to invest in content, but it is then used again to buy the top ranks through music hoarding. Music quality is doomed to inevitably fall.'

He also showed concern over the damage done to small companies. There are countless companies that use up all their money because they fall into music hoarding. He wants to protect the multitudes that pay for music hoarding because they are deceived by false information.

Yang Hyun Suk said, 'Music hoarding brokers lure in small companies with false information, saying that even the Big 3 use music hoarding. Despite the fact that music hoarding does not support a profit-making structure, small companies will fall for the lie and suffer losses. I hope that they will no longer believe the brokers' false claims.'

It's obvious why the Big 3 decided to get involved. At the very least we can say for sure that it's not to take care of their own needs. There's a strong desire to break the vicious cycle for the healthy development of K-pop in the long run. As large, influential agencies, they want to get involved so that the music industry can be righted once and for all, and so everyone can be in a win-win position.

Yang Hyun Suk concluded with these words, 'We do not use music hoarding. We're not saying we've suffered great losses. The music industry has been infected with music hoarding. If we don't fix this issue right now, small companies will suffer great losses. This is a desperate call to remove music hoarding so that we can all survive in the music industry.'