Rep. Kim Hyun of the Democratic Party of Korea [provided by lawmaker's office]
Rep. Kim Hyun of the Democratic Party of Korea [provided by lawmaker's office]

Rep. Kim Hyun of the Democratic Party of Korea, who represents Ansan in Gyeonggi Province, said Wednesday she had introduced amendments to the Music Industry Promotion Act and the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection to more effectively prevent the distribution and spread of music harmful to minors.

According to Kim, a rapper who had released numerous songs laced with hate speech since his teenage years attempted to hold a performance containing expressions insulting the late former President Roh Moo-hyun, only for the event to be canceled after the venue refused to rent its space.

In January last year, a crime-glorifying track produced by two teenagers from Incheon circulated not only on social media but also on major domestic and international streaming platforms including Melon, Genie, Spotify and YouTube Music, drawing widespread public outrage.

Experts have consistently said that a vicious cycle has emerged in which artists who begin their musical careers as minors absorb hate speech indiscriminately and then reproduce it through popular music.

The amendments were drafted to monitor and prevent harmful music from spreading through online platforms and music distribution networks.

Under the current legal framework, it takes at minimum several weeks to several months for the Youth Protection Committee under the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family to monitor a problematic track, formally designate it as harmful media for youth, and issue a public notice. During that review process, harmful content can circulate freely online with no meaningful restrictions, leaving a significant gap in youth protection. The legal basis for proactively regulating the distribution of content that violates review standards is also inadequate.

The amendment to the Music Industry Promotion Act would require music distributors to conduct their own checks on whether recordings are harmful to minors, and would ban the distribution of recordings made by minors when those recordings are found to be harmful.

The companion amendment to the Network Act would establish a legal basis allowing the heads of relevant central administrative agencies to urgently request the Korea Communications Commission to suspend or restrict the distribution of harmful music content when they determine it poses a clear and serious risk of harm to minors.

"Freedom of creative expression must be respected, but we cannot stand by while hate- and crime-inciting content circulates online without any safeguards, causing harm to peer communities, educational settings and society as a whole," Kim said. "Culture and the arts are a spiritual asset of society, so any attempt to exploit them as a vehicle for spreading hate speech must be corrected. We will push distributors to take responsible self-regulatory action to address the lack of verification mechanisms in the minor-artist release process and the delays in content review, and we will build an emergency response system within the Korea Communications Commission."


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