Big Bang leader G-Dragon's "Kwon Ji Yong" physical album in USB format is up for release today and Gaon Chart has responded to the controversy surrounding the issue.
Gaon Chart, Korea's equivalent of Billboard Charts, explained why it will not consider the USB format of "Kwon Ji Yong" as album sales.
"We cannot consider the 'album' that the media is talking about to be the same as the 'album' as Gaon Chart has been defining it," it said, according to AllKPop.
Under Korea's copyright law that was revised in September 2016, it said, "to say that an 'album' is something physical with music on it, but also includes digital matter."
"Easily explained, according to the copyright laws, an 'album' is an 'album' even if it's on a CD, a tape, an LP, or a USB. Therefore, in matters of the copyright, the 'Kwon Ji Yong USB' can be considered an 'album,'" it added.
But it said its definition of album "is different, and we limit it only to accounts where music is bound to a physical object."
Gaon explained that if they consider G-Dragon's USB album, which only contains links to the songs and does not carry music files, as "'albums' as well, the walls between Gaon Chart's digital chart, download chart, and album chart will all be destroyed."
It ruled that "Kwon Ji Yong" USB album "is actually a download service according to copyright laws. Because of this, we will reflect sales of the product into the digital and download charts."
"We will cooperate with YG Entertainment to receive data related to this. The downloads from this product will be considered the same as the downloads from the other download services that Gaon considers," Gaon stated.
As of now, Gaon will consider a USB album as an album if music files are in it instead of download links like in G-Dragon's album.
"Third, the 'Kwon Ji Yong USB' is a product that is difficult to consider through the media that has been released so far. Because of this, we thought a lot about the effects it would have on maintaining the Gaon Chart's policies if considered an 'album,'" Gaon added.
