Kim Jae-won, a Rebuilding Korea Party lawmaker, said at the National Assembly Culture. Sports. and Tourism Committee audit on the 14th that "although massive royalties are expected from Korean music distributed in China, creators are not collecting them properly due to structural problems," and argued that "royalty collection should not be left only to the private sector, and the government should step in to build a distribution system."
Currently, for Korean creators to receive royalties from China, they must sign separate contracts with domestic publishers. Kim said, "Because the Music Copyright Society of China has failed to properly collect royalties from digital music transmission operators, even though the Korea Music Copyright Association is registered as a full member, creators still have to proceed by separately contracting with a publisher to receive royalties."
The problem is that domestic publishers did not properly distribute the royalties collected from Chinese platforms to creators. Singer-songwriter Lee Siha, who appeared as a witness that day, said, "I had understood that we were not receiving royalties because Chinese music users were not paying usage fees, but Tencent and others had already been paying royalties, and it was domestic publishers without contracts that were collecting the royalties."
Kim said, "No matter how much we talk about a 300 trillion era for the culture industry, it is meaningless if we cannot recoup fair profits," and stressed that "strong measures such as corrective orders, criminal complaints, and business suspensions are needed." He went on to call for inspections of Chinese copyright agents and a full investigation into whether there was unjust revenue from Chinese royalties.
Minister Chae Hwi-young of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism answered, "We will conduct a comprehensive fact-finding survey."
Meanwhile, there was also discussion about improving the treatment of webtoon workers. A webtoon industry official who appeared as a witness said, "In 2021, CEO Kim Jun-gu personally appeared and asserted there was no unfairness, but even at that moment, rookie contests were held on the premise of serialization while not paying, not signing contracts, and making them work for two years," and added, "There are many problems, such as requesting that appearance fees be split even when an individual creator appears on a broadcast."
Lee Ki-hyeon, a Democratic Party of Korea lawmaker, said, "The webtoon industry is a foundational industry in the cultural ecosystem," and added, "This issue, which is pointed out at every audit, should be corrected."