Today I logged onto my Twitter account (shameless plug @zakubot) and was puzzled to see people agitated over the blocking of music videos on Youtube. Looking for myself, I found out that UMG (aka Universal Music Group) had blocked some KPop music videos from CUBE Entertainment on the grounds of copyright infringement.
Normal enough, but the kicker was that these blocked videos were all from the official artists' pages. The plot thickens when you remember that UMG Korea distributes CUBE's music. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN....
Once you get to the bottom of it however, it's not as bad as some people are making it out to be. As of this writing, only 4Minute's Volume Up, GNA's 2Hot, Troublemaker, some B2ST MVs (don't really care bout them so I didn't check), and some BTOB (REALLY don't care about them) MVs were hit. The majority of their catalogs are intact so it's not the end of the world for CUBE stans, let alone KPop stans in general.
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Normal enough, but the kicker was that these blocked videos were all from the official artists' pages. The plot thickens when you remember that UMG Korea distributes CUBE's music. DUN DUN DUUUUUUUN....
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| MTE, Jiyoon. |
But this is the KPop fandom we're talking about, so this was naturally blown way way waaaaaaaaaay out of proportion by Twitter, Tumblr, and KPop forums. This is the tweet I was talking about when I logged onto Twitter.
Ok. Exaggeration was a bit of an understatement. If there was ever a need for a word for something more exaggerated than an exaggeration, I would use it here. I don't think I need to tell you exactly what is wrong with the whole rallying cry poster, so let's just all laugh at the ludicrous claim that UMG is racist for blocking KPop videos. Or that UMG wants to allegedly keep KPop for Koreans. Or that the success of KPop is only because of international fans. Or that without international attention, KPop is only liked by a small number of Koreans.
It gets better. "UMG" happens to be trending on Twitter right now, and the response to this alleged persecution of the KPop stan is quite frankly disgusting. I'd screencap and post some of it, but it's better if you see for yourself.
EDIT: Not even Wikipedia is safe. Seriously people. This actually happened, check the editing history for yourself. l0l
These people are acting like it's the end of the world, but quite frankly it's hard to muster up sympathy if you consider what Japanese music fans have had to put up with for ages. You can't even upload (for example) an Amuro Namie PV without it getting taken down an hour later these days. KPoppers have had it so much easier.
EDIT: Not even Wikipedia is safe. Seriously people. This actually happened, check the editing history for yourself. l0l
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| Click to EXPAND |
At any rate, no one seems to be making an official statement on what's going on. Nope, not even Allkpop or Soompi. Suck our dicks, AKF brings the real breaking news and shit. We'll keep ya posted.