What to do about music files leaked? KEY reveals SM's amazingly magical tracking method! Rare praise from Korean netizens: Smart indeed!

Whether a large or small firm, there can be a slip-up of "music leakage". Although the leaked music is irreversible, it can also surprise fans. However, recently, KEY, a member of the boy group SHINee, revealed SM's methods of investigating music leakage during an online show, sparking a lot of discussion among netizens.

Recently returned with new work, KEY appeared on singer Lee Seok Hoon's online show, even bringing Lee Seok Hoon to the interior of the SM building and accidentally revealing on the show how the company tracks and identifies leaks of sound sources.

After KEY and Lee Seok Hoon arrived at SM, they encountered a co-worker wearing headphones and working. Upon asking, they found out that the staff was incorporating "noise" into a song. On the other hand, Lee Seok Hoon did not understand why noise needed to be added to a good song.

Regarding this, KEY also explained, "Since the promotion department has already heard the audio source, to prevent the leak of the audio source, we add noise that only internal staff know about in the master tape of the song, for example, noise that occurs every 10 seconds, etc."

KEY said, "So if a version of the sound source with noise accidentally leaks out, you can tell where it leaked from. For example, if the sound source given to the TV station is to emit noise every 25 seconds, you can immediately realize that it leaked from the TV station." He also claimed that SM's method of tracing the leakage of sound sources has never been revealed to the public.