Forced Burden of Google App Payments: Music Rights and Businesses Bear the Load

Minimizing the Impact Passed on to Consumer Prices

On the 9th, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism approved the revision of the "Music Copyright Usage Fee Collection Regulations" by each rights holder organization, which includes the "Online Music Service Copyright Fee Win-Win Agreement." This is a measure to respond to the increase in payment fees triggered by Google's forced in-app payments. To alleviate the burden on consumers, the rights holder organizations in the music sector and online music service providers worked together to minimize the impact of the payment fee increase being passed on to consumer prices.

The core issue is the distribution of the burden between music rights holders and service providers. Based on streaming, the copyright fee in online music services accounts for 65% of total sales, while the provider's share, including payment fees, is 35%. When payment fees increase, the provider's share decreases accordingly. If the provider raises service prices to maintain profits, the burden ultimately falls on consumers.

Under this agreement, rights holders will not receive additional copyright fees from service price increases. Providers will also bear reduced profits compared to before. Only a portion of the increased payment fees will be reflected in consumer prices.

Im Seong-hwan, Director of the Copyright Bureau at the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, explained, "During ten meetings, online music service providers have already raised consumer prices in a limited way, and some lowered prices as the implementation of the agreement became more visible." He added, "The revised regulations will be temporarily implemented for two years until sales in May next year, and discussions to respond to payment fee increases at the end of this year will be resumed."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.