K-Pop Earns Over W10 Billion in Royalties from Japan

Korean pop music has earned over W10 billion in royalties from Japan alone (US$1=W1,085). The Korea Music Copyright Association on Sunday said it calculated the data from the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers and tallied last year's royalties at W11.03 billion, the first time they exceeded W10 billion.

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The money is generated from Korean songs being played and sung in concerts, TV and radio programs as well as karaoke bars. It amounts to about 10 percent of royalties earned at home during the same period.

Royalties for K-pop from Japan have sharply increased from W2.4 billion in 2009.

TV and radio broadcasting generated 75 percent of the money, and most of that was from the original soundtracks of TV series. Twenty-eight Korean soap operas aired on terrestrial channels in Japan last year, and 42 on cable channels.

K-pop stars such as Kara, Jang Keun-suk, TVXQ and Girls' Generation made over 90 appearances on terrestrial and cable channels to sing their songs and Korean music shows also became a regular feature of Japanese TV programming.

Some 11 percent of the royalties came from karaoke bars, and 7 percent from mobile phone services.

KOMCA said the royalties earned in Japan are incomparably bigger than the W137 million earned in Hong Kong, W130 million in Taiwan, W100 million in Singapore and W58 million in the U.S.

But the association warned that growing animosity between Japan and Korea over Dokdo and other issues could hurt profits in the future.