UPSIZE PH | The Spotify-Kakao M divorce that shook K-pop fans

If you're a K-pop fan, you already know that many of your favorite idols' songs have now disappeared from Spotify's catalog.

Today, the music streaming service Spotify said in a statement that its licensing agreement with Korean music distributor Kakao M had expired and this is why all music distributed by the latter would no longer be available on the service.

Among the artists affected are IU, YYounha, CL, HyunA, Jessi, Sunmi, Hyolyn, SEVENTEEN, NU’EST, MAMAMOO, Epik High, MONSTA X, THE BOYZ, (G)I-DLE, LOONA, SF9, 4Minute, VIXX, INFINITE, Dreamcatcher, MOMOLAND, ASTRO, Block B, WJSN, Golden Child, VICTON, Lovelyz, PENTAGON, ONEUS, KARD, Brave Girls, CNBLUE, BTOB and many others.

"We have been making efforts in all directions over the past year and a half to renew the global licensing agreement so that we could continue to make Kakao M artists’ music available to fans all over the world, as well as our 345 million users in 170 different regions. However, in spite of this, we were unable to reach an agreement about renewing our global license," said Spotify in a statement.

Photo credit: @younha_holic on Instagram

Spotify said the expiration of its licensing agreement with Kakao M had nothing to do with the service being in direct competition with Kakao M’s own streaming service Melon in South Korea.

Later, Kakao M released a statement that it was Spotify who chose not to renew their agreement.

"Unrelated to our preexisting global licensing agreement with Spotify, Kakao M has been separately negotiating with Spotify regarding a domestic contract for the supply of music. Unrelated to the domestic contract, which we are still negotiating, we separately received notice of the expiration of our license on February 28, and we requested a renewal of our existing global contract," said Kakao M.

Photo credit: @nuest_official on Instagram

“Due to Spotify’s policy that they must proceed with the domestic and global contracts at the same time, our global contract has currently expired."

So what to do now? If you don't have a CD player to play your albums in, you can subscribe to YouTube Premium, which includes access to YouTube Music.

If you're an iOS user, you can also subscribe to Apple Music, where most of the music that got delisted from Spotify are still available.