Korean musician and entrepreneur Micky Jung has launched a classical music streaming application called Classic Manager. An open-source, membership-free app, users can access a regularly updated database of music no longer protected by copyright.

For Jung, the app was a response to what he sees as the increasing insular world of classical music. “The classical industry is a conservative and closed culture, which made the music most difficult to access,” he said in an article published by the South China Morning Post. “Beethoven’s music should have been made easier to access than, for instance, K-pop boy band EXO’s, but in reality it is not.”

“People who want to learn to play a Beethoven piece buy the score and a CD, but still they don’t know how to begin to learn the piece. The culture – as if it is made difficult only to allow the few with refined tastes in music who can relish these pieces – is mostly unchanged since its beginning and this is making the whole industry doomed.”

Jung attributes to K-pop’s popularity to its accessibility, and believes that classical music should be equally available to anyone interested in the genre, given its timeless appeal.

“K-pop ascended in the global music industry, riding on the free channel of YouTube,” he said. “But, the only thing YouTube has done is to provide a platform for the music to reach people. I wanted to make such a channel, connecting music lovers to humanity’s musical treasures and enabling anyone to listen and learn classical music, free of barriers. Easier access means more public interest for classical music, which in turn can nurture the whole industry.”

Jung has developed an algorithm that automatically adds music newly freed from copyright to the app’s archives. He says Classic Manager’s vast collection is due to his country-specific filtering, and boasts of better sound quality than its European rivals, which predominantly sources music from old mono records.

Although the app has only just been released, the initial response has been promising, with 23,000 people having already downloaded Classic Manager. A launch in Japan is set for this month, and in China and Southeast Asian countries later in the year.

Jung has big plans for the app, which he envisions as a classical music multi-library, where users can stream and download tracks, scores, composer information and academic writing. He also sees Classic Manager as a distributor of new works, helping young composers to gain a foothold in the industry.

“Everybody says releasing classic albums is a money-losing business. By having a platform where artists can easily release their albums and distribute them, we can change all that so artists can get the biggest share of their own creations,” he said.

There is no word yet as to when the app will reach Australian shores.