아직 많이 부족하지만 ㅠㅠ 문법이나 문단간 연결, 쳬계측면에서 첨삭좀 부탁드려요 ㅠㅠㅠ
Psy
is having the time of his life. He has gained international fame with his
catchy hit single Gangnam style and it is followed up by his new song
‘Gentleman’. Thanks to the incredible success of Gangnam Style, Psy has made 3
billion won, with his streaming and downloaded revenues from his homeland
accounting for relatively little, a mere 30 million won.
In
the case of iTunes, the site takes 10 percent of the price per download, while
the 60 percent is given to music labels and artists. However, in South Korea,
the market works differently. Major Korean music sites such as MelOn and Mnet
offer subscription-based services, which allow the listeners to download 150
songs for 5000 won. Of this fixed payment structure, production companies and
musicians receive as little as 30 won (5% of total revenue) per track. This
must then be split between performers, songwriters, and the label itself. Because
of this distorted distribution structure, musicians are receiving unreasonably
small amounts of money for their priceless art. Even SM Entertainment’s
boss complains that 1 million downloads cannot cover the cost of filming one
music video. In an era when all the media and the government are constantly
exaggerating the cultural value of K-pop, this seems very paradoxical.
The
biggest labels and music agencies have become experts at squeezing cash out of
their pop stars’ names by compelling them to show up in television variety
shows, advertisement and local festivals, rather than their music. But only a
handful of idol stars are popular enough to benefit from this structure. Even a
fairly well-know indie and so-called ‘underground’ musicians are unlikely to
receive more than 3 million won for a single album with online music services.
Music
industries try to keep the average price per track low because of the fear of
illegal downloading. It is documented that worldwide music sales have fallen
around 30 percent since 2004 as piracy has become more prevalent. Moreover, illegal
circulation of cultural contents in South Korea has strengthened the belief
that ‘music is free’, so the consumers take cheap services for granted.
Recently,
‘underground’ and indie musicians held concert ‘Stop dumping music!’, to fight
for their rights toward unreasonable downloading services. The artists claimed
that subscription-based download systems devalue the music and discourage the
growth of diverse genres in the Korean music scene. Besides, alternative rock
band ‘Jang Giha and the Faces’ released their new single with Hyundai Card
Music and declared that the listener could determine the price that he or she
is willing to pay for the song. This unique experiment turned out to be
successful, for more than 60 percent of the downloaders paid for music and the
result turned out to be 9 times more profitable than the subscription-based
download services. About the result, Jang and Hyundai Card Music said, “The
price of 976 won shows an apparent message from the consumers regarding the
irrational system of music download. We hope that the Blank Cheque Project can
serve as a meaningful starting point to establish the music download systems”
The
Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Sports revised its guidelines pertaining how
the online digital music service sites should charge their customers. Nonethless,
the insiders still say that the new plan will not bring the fundamental changes
to the market and will continue to allow distributors to sell songs at dumping
prices.