Business.
商业。
South Korea's music industry.
韩国音乐产业。
Top of the K-pops.
韩流顶端。
Korean musicians must export or starve.
韩国音乐家，音乐外销成唯一出路。
PSY (pictured, also known as Park Jae-sang) is having the time of his life. On August 12th at a stadium in Seoul, the rap star's concert felt like the only party in town. He entertained 30,000 fans for almost four hours. And this veteran of the South Korean charts has suddenly become popular in the West, since the video for his song "Gangnam Style", in which he rides an imaginary horse around a posh part of Seoul, went viral on YouTube. The track even hit number one on the iTunes dance chart in Finland.
PSY（如图，本命朴载相）火了。8月12日，这位说唱明星在首尔一家体育馆内举行了演唱会，场面火爆万人空巷。他为30000名粉丝表演了近4个小时。不仅如此，新歌"江南style"骑马舞（在首尔高档社区附近做骑马的动作）MV在油管的爆红，使得经常登上韩国音乐榜单的PSY在西方也赢得了瞩目。这首歌甚至在芬兰iTunes舞曲排行榜上也成为了第一。
Korean pop (known as K-pop to fans) is turning into an export success. Groups such as Super Junior and 2NE1 now sell millions of CDs and concert tickets in other parts of Asia. As K-pop zooms up the foreign charts, share prices of leading labels, such as SM Entertainment, have soared too.
韩国流行音乐（也称韩流）正取得出口上的成功。诸如super junior和2NE1等组合在韩国以外的其他亚洲地区售出了上百万CD及演唱会门票。韩流在外国的飞速发展，让SM等大型唱片公司的股票价格水涨船高。
But the outlook at home is less rosy. With the world's fastest broadband connections, Koreans have embraced downloading. This in itself is not a problem, but the way they do it is.
不过，韩国音乐产业在国内前景却不容乐观。有着全球最快宽带速率的韩国人喜欢从网上下载音乐，这本身并不是问题，问题出现在下载的方式上。
In other countries, many music-lovers still pay for downloads, through the likes of Apple's iTunes shop. Fans typically shell out at least 99 cents per track (and more in countries such as Japan and Britain). Of this, 70% goes to music labels and artists.
在其他国家，许多音乐爱好者付费，通过苹果Itunes等在线商店下载音乐。一般下载一首歌曲的价格至少为99美分（有的国家收费更高，如日本和英国）。其中，音源下载收入的70%会交给唱片公司和歌手。
In South Korea, the market works differently. Subscription-based services, which allow the listener to rent music, are extremely popular. For a period of one month fans of rock and pop music pay a fee of around 9,000 won ($8) for 150 tracks. Such services have helped to drive overall music sales to 430 billion won in 2011.
韩国音乐市场的运营模式则不一样。该国的订阅服务允许用户租听音乐，这种服务在其国内极其流行。有段时间，只需支付9000韩元（8美元），爱好摇滚或流行音乐的用户就可以在一月内租听150首歌曲。2011年，该项业务的销售额为4300亿韩元。
Alas for labels and artists, however, their payout is miserly. Under subscription deals, they collect as little as 30 won per track. This must then be split between performers, writers and the label itself. SM Entertainment's boss complains that even 1m downloads cannot cover the cost of making a music video.
不过，唱片公司和歌手就悲剧了，他们从中获得的分红简直少得可怜。订阅销售模式下，唱片公司和歌手每首歌只能收取30韩元。就这点钱还得在表演者、作词作曲者和唱片公司间进行再分配。SM公司老板抱怨说，100万下载量收取的分红还不够MV制作费。
The fear of illegal downloading keeps the average price per track of digital music low. That the subscription-service operators are a powerful oligopoly further reduces the labels' bargaining power. Thus, SM Entertainment took in a trifling 1.9 billion won in domestic digital sales in the first quarter of 2012. By contrast, the firm sold CDs worth 3 billion won, despite the physical format's supposed demise.
为遏制非法下载，数码音源的价格被压得很低。而租听服务运营商的垄断地位，进一步压缩了唱片公司的谈判空间。因此，SM公司2012年第一季度的国内音源收入才19亿韩元。形成鲜明对比的是，尽管有朝一日CD终将被淘汰，该公司的唱片销售额仍旧达到了30亿韩元。
SM Entertainment and other purveyors of K-pop cover this shortfall at home by having their stars hawk the latest phone, or appear on television variety shows. The biggest labels have become adept at squeezing cash out of their pop stars' names, rather than their music. But only a handful of musicians are famous enough to benefit.
SM和其他公司通过让明星代言最新手机，或是参加电视综艺节目来弥补这块收入短板。唱片巨擘们善于利用偶像名号赚取利润，音乐本身反倒其次。不过，能单以名气吸金的明星毕竟只占少数。
South Korea's old business model, perfected by its carmakers, was to use a captive home market as a launch-pad from which to invade foreign shores. The country's pop musicians have turned this model upside down: they have to export their tunes to make up for meagre pickings at home.
传统的韩国商业模式已由汽车制造商发展到极致，即先掌控国内市场，然后以此为跳板征服外国市场。而这个国家音乐人却将这个模式颠倒过来：不得不通过音乐出口来补贴国内的微薄收入。