KKBox, stylized as KKBOX is a music streaming service developed in 2005 by KKBox Inc., a software company in

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

. It is a part of Japanese Telecom Group,

KDDI () is a Japanese telecommunications operator formed on October 1, 2000 through the merger of DDI Corp. (Daini-Denden Inc.), KDD (Kokusai Denshin Denwa) Corp. (itself a former listed state-owned enterprise privatized in 1998), and IDO Corp. It h ...

. The service mainly targets the music markets of East and

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, south-eastern region of Asia, consistin ...

, focusing on regions including:

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

. Working on a freemium basis, both paid and free members can listen to over 20 million tunes on

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

s, TVs, media centers and computers. As a Taiwan-based music streaming software, KKBox caters mainly to Mandarin-speaking users by collaborating with record companies in the Taiwanese music industry. KKBox also has close links with Taiwanese artists, and mainstream Mandopop artists like

Jay Chou Jay Chou ( zh, t=周杰倫, s=周杰伦, poj=Chiu Kia̍t-lûn, p=Zhōu Jiélún, first=t, w=Chou Chieh-lun; born January 18, 1979) is a Taiwanese singer, songwriter, record producer, rapper, actor, and television personality. Dubbed the " King ...

, Eric Chou and Bii.

Development

After launching KKBox in

, the company expanded the music streaming service to

and

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

in 2009,

in 2011,

, and

in 2013. Starting from 2011, KKBox received investment from KDDI Corporation, a Japanese telecom who holds 76% of the stocks;

HTC Corporation HTC Corporation ( zh, t=宏達國際電子股份有限公司, s=宏达国际电子股份有限公司, p=Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī, first=t) or High Tech Computer Corporation, (literally ''Hongda International Electron ...

, a smartphone company, and; GIC, a Singaporean Government fund. KKBox has operated on

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

, Windows Media Center,

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...

Android Android may refer to: Science and technology * Android (robot), a humanoid robot or synthetic organism designed to imitate a human * Android (operating system), Google's mobile operating system ** Bugdroid, a Google mascot sometimes referred to ...

Symbian Symbian is a discontinued mobile operating system A mobile operating system is an operating system for mobile phones, tablets, smartwatches, smartglasses, or other non-laptop personal mobile computing devices. While computers such as typic ...

, Bada, partly

Java Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...

, and since 2015 Apple Watch. In 2006, the first KKBox Music Awards ceremony was held in

. Various artists that have performed and been honored including Eason Chan,

, Jolin Tsai, Apink, Sekai No Owari. In January 2017, KKBox announced the winners of its 12th Annual KKBox Music Awards.

Controversy over copyright

In 2007, KKBox was suspected of reproducing musical works and allowed its members to download them without authorization. The works included 324 songs owned by HCM Music and songwriter Chan Kien Ming. KKBox's owner and manager were prosecuted by Taipei District Prosecutors Office. In 2009, the court held that the case was considered as a civil dispute and the defendants were acquitted.遭控侵權 KKBox簡民一判無罪--Chinatimes http://news.chinatimes.com/CMoney/News/News-Page-content/0,4993,11050709+122009072200294,00.html

References

{{Authority control Software companies of Taiwan Taiwanese companies established in 2004 2004 software Android (operating system) software Windows software Companies based in Taipei Companies established in 2004 IOS software Music streaming services Symbian software Taiwanese music websites KDDI