The conference room at SOME Entertainment.
“What the hell is this situation?”
Choi Jinhyeok, the CEO of SOME Entertainment, who had once come from the backstreets where fists did the talking, asked Cobaltman.
“Don’t worry. It’s just some jealous trash hell-bent on dragging me down.”
“……Do I look like I’m worried about you right now?”
Cobaltman realized he had made a mistake.
Since he had been riding high for so long and had grown close to CEO Choi Jinhyeok, he had failed to read his intentions immediately without even realizing it.
“If Wind’s sales take a hit because of you, I won’t let it slide.”
CEO Choi Jinhyeok did not care whether Cobaltman had stolen an unknown composer’s song or was being framed.
As long as there was no damage to sales.
But now Cobaltman was not only throwing cold water on his business, he was also barking up the wrong tree with useless excuses. Choi felt like beating him senseless.
But he could not hit an artist under his agency like he used to.
“I’m saying this just in case. Don’t even think about using the boys.”
Flinch.
Cobaltman had been thinking of mobilizing his thugs.
He was certain that if he sent the boys out and divided the areas to search, they would be able to find K by the end of the day.
“Why aren’t you answering?”
“Ah, of course. I won’t do anything like that.”
CEO Choi Jinhyeok had worked tirelessly to erase his background from the company’s image.
So he could overlook Cobaltman hanging around with thugs, but he absolutely could not tolerate using them to cause trouble.
“Fuck, then what do you expect me to do? The company won’t even protect its own artist?”
After CEO Choi Jinhyeok left, Cobaltman, now alone in the conference room, slammed his fist down on the table and shouted.
If he caught K and threatened him so badly he pissed himself, that bastard would explain that it was not true. So what was Cobaltman supposed to do?
“You little bastard. I’m going to kill you in this industry.”
Cobaltman called somewhere.
Once the other person answered, a smile appeared at the corner of his mouth, and his voice quickly turned gentlemanly.
“Reporter Han. I’m sorry I couldn’t take your call earlier. You called quite a lot, but something came up.”
Entertainment scoop reporter Han Pyeong-il replied with easy charm.
“Composer. You need to give me an explanation so I can write an article for you quickly. I almost felt hurt, thinking you were avoiding my calls.”
“Me? Avoid you, Reporter Han? There’s no way.”
In truth, Cobaltman did not like Reporter Han.
That was because the articles Han Pyeong-il wrote only came in two types.
Promotional articles written after getting paid, or trashy gossip-sheet articles written to demand money.
“For now, I need to crush K first.”
Reporter Han was the kind of person who would write an article immediately without fact-checking as long as he was paid.
And that night, articles that were far from the truth spread quickly.
“Next news. You are probably aware of the story that has heated up the music industry from yesterday through today. Wind’s , known as a song by star composer Cobaltman. An unknown composer has revealed that this song was originally not Cobaltman’s, but his own. He is Mr. K, whom Reporter Lee Hyeonwook of KCN Broadcasting interviewed. Reporter Lee Hyeonwook has done additional reporting on the shockwaves in the music industry that began with his exposé. Let’s hear the details directly from Reporter Lee.”
The live studio where KCN’s seven o’clock evening news was being broadcast.
After anchor Song Eui-jin covered three segments on politics and the economy, she called on Lee Hyeonwook.
“Good evening. I’m Lee Hyeonwook.”
“From last night through today, countless rebuttal articles have come out from Cobaltman’s side. He claims he does not know a person named K, has never heard his song, and that as someone who receives tens of millions of won in royalties every month, he has no reason whatsoever to steal someone else’s song. Public opinion also seems to be leaning toward his explanation. I’ll ask directly. Is Mr. K’s exposé true?”
“To give you the conclusion first, it is true.”
Cobaltman’s strategy of denial was far too disappointing.
A lie works best when it is mixed properly into the truth.
But he had tried to brush everything off from the very start with the lie that he did not know K at all.
“Do you have evidence?”
“Of course. From this point on, we will play an audio recording of Cobaltman calling K. Please listen closely.”
“So I’m telling you I’m giving you the chance to hand your song over to me and release it under my name. This is a real honor! Otherwise, do you think your track would ever see the light of day?”
Fortunately, K, who was used to recording work, had recorded every call whenever Cobaltman contacted him.
He said it had been so he could receive money later. It was an extremely praiseworthy decision.
“The recording you just heard is the phone call in which Cobaltman tried to receive Wind’s track from K. There is also another recording of Cobaltman left on K’s phone from last night. Please listen.”
“You fucking bastard. Are you hiding well? Just try showing up in front of me. That’ll be the day of your funeral. I can just say I don’t know you and that’s the end of it. Did we make a money transaction? Did we agree to meet somewhere? You did think before you pulled this, right?”
Cobaltman’s voice, shouting and threatening in a way completely unlike his usual gentlemanly image, flowed through the studio.
“This is something KCN is reporting exclusively, but is this really Cobaltman’s voice? Some viewers may think the evidence was fabricated.”
Anchor Song Eui-jin asked with a slightly sharp edge in her tone.
Even though she was covering KCN Broadcasting’s own exclusive report on her news program, I felt a strange hostility from her.
It was not as if I had failed to anticipate that Anchor Song Eui-jin, who was in Reporter Kim Dusik’s line, would act this way.
‘She must have received some separate instruction from Kim Dusik.’
I answered with a relaxed smile.
“That’s right. Fact-checking is the lifeblood of all evidence. We took this audio file to the Korea Digital Forensics Technology Standards Institute and requested an audio forensic analysis.”
“We examined this recording file through spectrogram analysis, background noise patterns, voice characteristics, and more. As a result, no signs of manipulation were found. The metadata is also consistently maintained, and there were no abnormalities in the file. In our professional opinion, this recording file is at a reliable level.”
On the screen inside the news studio, an interview with researcher Kim Hyeonjun of the Korea Digital Forensics Technology Standards Institute, whom I had already interviewed, began to play.
On the screen, Cobaltman’s recorded voice appeared as a waveform that filled the display.
“To add further, the characteristics of the voice also appeared clearly, so there was no problem identifying the speaker. From a forensic perspective, we can say this is reliable material.”
“I see. But even if the voice matches, this is a matter of threats, not direct evidence that he used the track, isn’t it?”
Because this had been a live broadcast arranged in a rush, Anchor Song Eui-jin had not fully grasped everything I had reported.
“So she’s attacking first and seeing what happens. From the perspective of a fourth-year anchor, a rookie reporter looks easy to deal with, does he?”
But attacks like hers were meaningless actions that could not leave even a scratch on someone like me, who had risen all the way to News Director.
“That is correct. And from what Cobaltman says in the recording, there was no money transaction, so it is difficult to find direct evidence. That is why this time, we had to track the email where Composer K sent the track, as well as the IP address on Cobaltman’s side that received the track and sent a reply.”
I continued speaking to Anchor Song Eui-jin with an expression full of ease.
“Tracking an IP location requires help from an investigative agency or internet service provider. It is impossible without a court order. Accordingly, K’s side filed a complaint against Cobaltman this afternoon, and accurate results are expected to come out soon.”
“So that is something you will look into going forward, and for now, you have not confirmed it precisely. Is that right?”
I am the kind of person who only holds back twice. In this world, holding back a third time makes you too much of a pushover.
I had let the audio file issue slide once. I would not let her attack the IP tracking too.
“This is a part we will report through the investigation going forward. What we should focus on here is the fact that Cobaltman stated, ‘There was no money transaction, so there is no evidence.’ Anchor Song Eui-jin, do you think stealing another person’s creative work without paying proper compensation is not a crime? You seem to have no questions about that point.”
Song Eui-jin, who had been sitting there in a glamorous and haughty manner, had a subtle twist in her expression.
“How could that… be the case? I only asked carefully because this is an issue where the victim and perpetrator have not yet been clearly determined.”
Song Eui-jin cleared her throat and quickly managed her expression. But how furious must she have been inside, when I, a mere rookie reporter, had dared to call into question the hosting ability of a senior four years above me?
“Then, the track of this unknown composer…”
“The composer’s name is K.”
“Yes, Mr. K’s track. Have you also secured evidence that Cobaltman’s side used it?”
Song Eui-jin’s face grew a little redder.
“The screen you are seeing now shows comments on K’s interview article posted on the KCN Broadcasting website.”
[I was actually victimized too.]
└ [Do you have proof?]
└ [And who are you supposed to be?]
“Based on this comment, we can reasonably infer that there is an additional victim whose track was stolen by Cobaltman. So I went and met the people who had left comments claiming to be other victims.
Over the past day, K’s phone also received several messages from victims saying, ‘I was victimized too.’ Please look at the screen.”
“He said the same thing to me. That it was an honor for my track to see the light of day under his name. I mean, I wasn’t selling it for money, so why is that an honor? It’s theft.”
“I thought he meant he was giving me a chance to release my track. He always said it in interviews, didn’t he? That he liked raising up his juniors. But then he released it under his own name.”
“I trusted him. He was my idol. So I thought once he received royalties, he would share them with me. But when I contacted him, he cursed at me and told me never to contact him again, to get lost.”
The core of news is framing.
The public looks at and interprets news according to the frame set by the person delivering it.
Song Eui-jin may have wanted to trust Reporter Kim Dusik’s influence and Cobaltman’s power, but I strongly emphasized Cobaltman’s repeated theft.
This was not merely a situation where a single unknown composer was claiming harm. I was shedding light on his pattern of repeatedly stealing tracks.
[Honestly, isn’t his face too good for him to only be a composer?]
[His voice is good too. I wish he would sing the songs himself.]
[Would that song have ever seen the light of day if not for our oppa?]
[I believe in oppa.]
When entertainment scoop reporter Han Pyeong-il’s false article spread, quite a few comments on that article were insulting K and supporting Cobaltman.
In that atmosphere, I thought I had to put Cobaltman’s repeated theft of creative works front and center, rather than treating it as a one-time deviation.
Then, people who had once had their creative works stolen by someone with power began rising up like wildfire.
It was a MeToo movement.
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