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Spotify has confirmed the removal of hundreds of K-pop songs from its platform to the surprise of music fans worldwide.

The Sweden-based music streaming platform is yet to strike a new agreement with KakaoM - the South Korean entertainment, publishing, and distribution company that handles the catalogs of artists including Loona, IU, Cherry Bullet, and Mamamoo, among others.

“We have been working with KakaoM over the last year and a half to renew the global licensing agreement, so that their artists' music would remain available to Spotify's 345M+ listeners in nearly 170 markets around the world,” Spotify said in a statement forwarded to music website, NME.

“Despite our best efforts, the existing licensing deal we had with KakaoM (which covered all countries other than South Korea) has come to an end.”

The company added, “The fact that we have not yet reached agreement on a new global deal is unfortunate for their artists, as well as for fans and listeners worldwide.

“It is our hope that this disruption will be temporary and we can resolve the situation soon.

“We remain committed to working with local rights holders including KakaoM, to help grow the Korean music market and overall streaming ecosystem together.”

Spotify just launched in South Korea last month. The platform introduced a number of new playlists dedicated to Korean audiences such as the Korean Music Hot Now, Korean Music Rising, Today's Drama OST Hot Now, K-Pop Daebak, FRESH! New Music Korea, Hot Hits Korea, and more.

“We always want to be where the listeners and artists are, and Korea is rich in both,” Alex Norström, Chief Freemium Business Officer of Spotify, said to announce its entry into the country.

“This launch presents a massive opportunity for us to not only further our mission of bringing new and quality content to more audiences, but also help local Korean artists tap into Spotify's 320 million listeners worldwide.

“We hope to create more opportunities for Korean artists across all genres to be discovered by listeners around the world.”

Incidentally, KakaoM's parent company has a stake in one of South Korea's biggest digital platform, MelOn.

Many fans and even the artists themselves have expressed disappointment with the standoff between the two streaming platforms.

Some of the affected artists said that they were not informed about the arrangement and only learned about their songs dropping out on Spotify through the fans.

you know what's even more sad and infuriating? kakao m distributes for many artists from smaller companies as well and spotify was a platform where they were able to get global exposure, but now this has been ripped away from them... i cant even imagine how the artists feel.

-- nini 🌸 (@uaenaaday11) February 28, 2021

Apparently a disagreement between our distributor Kakao M & Spotify has made our new album Epik High Is Here unavailable globally against our will. Regardless of who is at fault, why is it always the artists and the fans that suffer when businesses place greed over art?

-- 에픽하이 타블로 | Tablo of Epik High (@blobyblo) February 28, 2021

I have never heard of an artist's music being taken down against the artist's will, especially for something they didn't do. https://t.co/VUYpmrtP4I

-- Eddie Nam (@eddienam) February 28, 2021

Even Filipino singer and Broadway star Lea Salonga gave her thoughts about the issue, replying to Korean producer and founder of independent music label, HIGHGRND, on Twitter.

That sucks. This album is so effing good and needs to be heard by as many folks as possible.

-- Lea Salonga (@MsLeaSalonga) February 28, 2021

One of the artists affected by Spotify and KakaoM's failure to come up with an agreement is Lee Ji-eun, popularly known as, IU. Get to know more about the South Korean superstar in this gallery:

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