S. Korea to beef up age-rating system for music videos

G-Dragon posing for his solo single "That XX" released on September 1, 2012.

Korean pop music videos are to be subjected to tighter regulation under the instruction of the Korea Media Rating Board.

The KMRB Chief Park Sun-yi stated at a press conference held at Seoul's press center on Tuesday that it will shorten and strengthen the process for the music video age-rating system, which has been on a three-month trail run since August 18.

"Age-rating system is not a restriction but an instruction," the organization's policy manager Ahn Chi-wan said, easing the concerns over the long classification procedure supposedly avoided by many K-pop artists.

The officials put on a slide show to show some video examples of the KMRB's standard of film and music video categorization based on sexually suggestive content, violence, theme, drugs and the risk of criminal imitation.

According to the KMRB, the board has launched the system for the healthy development of K-pop scene and has rated 20 out of 34 music videos so far as of September 7.

Four K-pop music videos including G-Dragon's latest single "ONE OF A KIND" and 4minute's "Over And Over" have not fully complied to the KMRB's classification process, they added.

"There were some worrisome opinions about the system before its implementation but due to the shortened number of days and process for evaluation we have entered into to a stable stage now," Ahn stressed during his speech.

Last month, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced that all videos must be rated by the KMRB jury before being posted online including YouTube and other portal websites.

What began as an action to keep under-aged viewers away from suggestive or violent content of music videos, stroke an off note in the music scene with people in the music business pointing that it takes at least two weeks for any videos to be screened and rated.

Under the new system, a music video without a rating by the KMRB could result in a maximum two-year prison sentence or 20 million won fine [around 17,600 U.S. dollars].

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