The Korea Music Copyright Association has improved its matching system, a key step in the royalty distribution process. Some operations have become up to 1,200 times faster.
According to the association on September 17, the large-scale matching of works has been reduced from the previous 3-4 days to under one hour, while matching rights holders for overseas royalties has decreased from about 10 hours to under 30 seconds. This represents an improvement of at least 72 times and up to 1,200 times in processing speed.
To distribute royalties, the association must connect music usage data received from users on platforms like YouTube and Netflix with the information on works and rights holders it manages.
The matching of works involves identifying potential matches by comparing song titles, artist names, and album names, while rights holder matching connects overseas royalties to actual rights holders who are members of the association.
Previously, even the same song could be entered with different spacing, English spellings, artist names, or subtitles, necessitating repeated searches and comparisons of large datasets. As a result, matching works took several days, and matching rights holders for overseas royalties averaged about 10 hours.
The association has revamped the system through in-house development. Instead of repeatedly requesting calculations from the database, the system now directly compares the similarity of music information, optimizing both the candidate search method and the data processing process.
By processing multiple data points and reducing unnecessary additional searches once a certain level of similarity is reached, the association has been able to decrease processing times. This allows for more music usage data to be verified within the same distribution schedule and enables additional checks on unmatched data that were not automatically linked. This is expected to enhance the accuracy and efficiency of royalty distribution.
In the future, the association plans to refine its ability to recognize differences in artist names and featuring credits, and it will consider matching methods that reflect the linguistic characteristics of Hangul, such as initial, medial, and final sounds. The goal is to develop a system that meets global standards for use in collecting and distributing overseas royalties.
Lee Si-ha, president of the Korea Music Copyright Association, stated, "The speed and accuracy of the distribution system are directly related to the royalties that members should receive. In a situation where music usage data is rapidly increasing, it is necessary to continuously improve the system structure, as stable processing is difficult with existing methods."
* This article has been translated by AI.
Copyright ⓒ Aju Press All rights reserved.