The issue has been an ongoing debate since 2012 when Psy's "Gangnam Style", a song which earned worldwide fame that year, allegedly only earned an initial profit of 5,460,000 KRW (~ 4,800 USD) despite being streamed 27,300,000 times.�

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'Newsroom' then brought up a more current example - Heize's "You, Clouds, Rain", which maintained the #1 spot for streaming on music charts for the entire month of July. According to 'Newsroom', Heize's profit for remaining #1 on music sites and being streamed 6,450,000 times in July was approximately 2,700,000 KRW (~ 2,400 USD). While songs can also earn an additional profit for being downloaded on music sites, Korean music sites make it easier to simply stream music without downloading the songs.�

When 'Newsroom' broke the topic down further, they claimed that each song earns 7 KRW (~ 0.01 USD) per stream. 40% (2.8 KRW) goes to the music site, 44% (3.08 KRW) goes to the production label, 10% (0.70 KRW) goes to the composer, producer, lyricist, and finally, 6% (0.42 KRW) goes to the artist.�

'Newsroom' also reported that Koreans prefer streaming music than listening to music from CDs in recent years. According to 'Newsroom', consumption of music via streaming was 42% (of total music consumption) in 2012, then rose up to 61% in 2015. Furthermore, the reporter then compared profit distribution on Korean music sites to 'Spotify' and 'Apple Music'. According to 'Newsroom', 'Spotify' earns 30% of the profits from song streaming, while 'Apple Music' earns 28.5% for itself. Both American music streaming platforms also charge more per song than Korean music sites.�

Clips from the August 21 broadcast of 'Newsroom''s 'Fact Check' segment have since been removed from JTBC's official SNS accounts. What do you think of 'Newsroom's findings?