Korea collected about 170 million won, roughly $120,000, in music copyright royalties from the United States last year — yes, that was the total for K-pop, a genre that accounts for an estimated 2 to 3 percent of the $18 billion U.S. music market.

The system has a serious flaw, says music mogul Kim Hyung-suk, who has officially tossed his hat into the ring to become the next chief of Korea Music Copyright Association (Komca).


“This is the critical time for K-pop,” stressed Kim during a roundtable interview in southern Seoul on Tuesday. “We’re in the middle of a paradigm shift driven by new technologies such as AI. Komca cannot keep collecting and distributing royalties with a system built decades ago — it’s far behind.”

Kim is one of Korea’s most prominent songwriters, best known for his work with legendary singers such as Kim Kwang-seok, Park Jin-young, Lee Moon-sae and Im Chang-jung. The 59-year-old has more than 1,400 songs registered with Komca, the nonprofit organization that manages contracted musicians’ copyrights and distributes the resulting royalties to its members.

Kim recently declared his candidacy for Komca chair, a four-year term, with the vote set for Dec. 16. His opponent is Lee Si-ha from rock duo The Cross, who currently serves as a member of Komca's board of directors.

Whoever wins will take over an organization responsible for 94 percent of all music copyright payments in Korea — and one currently grappling with turmoil.

Komca is facing multiple challenges, from mismanagement allegations to an ongoing feud with another copyright management organization, the Korean Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.

Lee, the other candidate for the chair, accused Komca during a parliamentary audit in October of allowing “publishers with murky contracts” to allegedly misappropriate copyright royalties paid by Chinese platforms. In June, a group of prominent songwriters and musicians launched an external emergency ethics committee dubbed Komca Watch, alleging conflicts of interest within the leadership and a lack of internal oversight.

Kim said he initially hesitated to run, but changed his mind after reviewing Komca’s financials.

“The current system has fallen far behind the explosive growth of the market,” he said. “If I win, the very next day, the first thing I plan to do is commission a global accounting firm to review our royalty collection and distribution system, as well as our employment structure.”

Citing transparency as his utmost priority, Kim outlined a vision built on four pillars: a new collection system to recover missing royalties and usher in what he calls a “1 trillion won collection era," expanded welfare for Komca’s 50,000 members, organizational reform including introducing a CEO-style management system, and technological upgrades — such as adopting an AI-powered royalty distribution system.

At the heart of his plan is a revamped system for retrieving missing royalties, especially from overseas. Komca currently relies on overseas partners and subcontractors to collect foreign royalties, which, according to Kim, often leads to missing payments due to the inconsistent matching of recordings and musical works.

According to the U.S. Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC), the organization distributed $771 million in royalties last year. Komca, meanwhile, collected about a total of 436.5 billion won last year, roughly $298 million, with 37.8 billion won coming from overseas.

Within that figure, royalty payments from the MLC stood at roughly 170 million won, and from Music Copyright Society of China (MCSC), about 700 million won.

Both figures fell much shorter of what would be expected given K-pop’s market share abroad, Kim noted. In 2023, Morgan Stanley estimated that K-pop accounted for about 3 percent of the total recorded music revenue in the U.S. market.

One of the possible solutions suggested by Kim is a Korean version of the MLC that would allow direct dealings with global music platforms, with a goal of raising U.S. collections to more than 20 billion won, China to 10 billion won and bring overall overseas royalties to 100 billion won.

“If we build a system like the U.S. MLC, which handles royalties tied to recorded sound, we don’t need to remain dependent on organizations like China’s MCSC,” Kim suggested.

On the rapid rise of AI — which prompted high-profile U.S. lawsuits over alleged copyright infringement — Kim stressed that “AI is not humanity’s adversary — it’s a tool.”

“The bigger issue than whether fast-produced, fast-consumed music is good or bad is how this [AI] will generate profits for Komca members,” he said.

In other words, instead of trying to ban the technology that is already reshaping the industry, the focus should be on securing royalty flows from AI-generated revenues, Kim suggested.

Asked about the ongoing conflict between HYBE and former ADOR CEO Min Hee-jin, Kim answered cautiously. Both sides, he noted, are fighting for their own interests, with HYBE from a corporate standpoint and Min based on her standing within the K-pop community, but involving NewJeans directly in the battle crosses a line.

“When such a conflict occurs, it usually stays between management and companies,” Kim said. “Min bringing NewJeans into the narrative is certainly wrong.”

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]