Joox are flexing their K-Pop catalogue on their main rival Spotify
Asian streaming service Joox is in competition for listeners with Spotify, so they’re bragging about their library of Korean music.
Joox is the Tencent-owned music streaming service in Asia and has “arguably the strongest and most comprehensive K-Pop library across all music streaming platforms“. Of course, K-Pop is huge around the world these days and available on all music platforms but some catalogues are clearly better than others.
That’s certainly what Joox are saying, making use of Spotify‘s recent loss of a significant chunk of their K-Pop music. As Spotify were celebrating their triumphant launch into South Korea, introducing their platform to the world’s sixth largest music market, they sadly lost the license for one of the country’s biggest distributors, Kakao M.
The lack of a new licensing deal meant that Spotify lost all of the music that comes under Kakao M’s management. The matter goes deeper as the distributor is tied up with MelOn, South Korea’s very own streaming service and Spotify’s biggest competitor for the market.
Speaking on the discussion, a spokesperson for Spotify said that they hoped the disruption to content would only be temporary, saying it’s “unfortunate for their artists, as well as for fans and listeners worldwide”. However Kakao M said that it was due to “Spotify’s policy that they must process with the domestic and global contracts at the same time”.
Joox weighing in on Spotify’s loss, have launched a lowkey flex of a statement simply reminding everyone of their huge K-Pop library and being sure to mention that it includes the artists no longer on Spotify. As Spotify launches further into Asian markets will they only face more challenges with local competitors? It may be a case of teething trouble, or we may see services like MelOn and Joox fight back.