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Japan Is Finally Catching On to User-Generated Content, and There’s Money to Be Made

Japan's music industry is making new money on YouTube, finally licensing for user-generated content after years of resistance.

At the same time in Japan, labels refused to upload their music,” says Sazunic, a Canadian expat, who has spent 15 years producing content for YouTube and since 2021 has run the popular lifestyle channel King Kogi (188,000 subscribers), featuring videos about her adopted homeland. The rising popularity of streaming in the world’s second-biggest recorded music market — worth $2.7 billion in 2022, according to IFPI, behind only the United States — has, however, been transformative, leading local labels and management companies to pivot away from blocking songs on UGC platforms and towards licensing and monetizing them. Orfium, which generates income for clients by tracking and monetizing the use of music in broadcast and UGC platforms, has been active in Japan since 2022 when it acquired social media firm Breaker and is now one of the biggest operators in the local market.

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