Five organizations related to Korean popular music, including the Korea Management Association, the Korea Entertainment Producers Association, the Korea Music Label Industry Association, the Recording Industry Association of Korea, and the Korea Music Content Association, argued that the relationship between agencies and stars needs to be reestablished.

On the 27th, a press conference titled ‘Let’s keep a promise: If there are no record producers, there is no K-pop!’ was held at the JW Marriott Hotel in Banpo, Seoul, with the participation of officials from the five organizations.

Choi Kwang-ho, Secretary General of the Korea Music Content Association, who gave a keynote speech that day, emphasized, “The foundation of the K-pop industry is the exclusive contract between the agency and the singer. It‘s like a two-on-three-legged race where each side ties a knot around their own feet. It’s no longer a simple employer-employee relationship. It‘s a partnership between the agency as a corporate business and the singer as an individual business.”

He continued, “Recently, this knot has been threatened. There are even immoral agencies that tempt singers to untie the knot, producers hired by agencies, and hidden large capitalists. Because of this, the position of agencies is becoming narrower. Tampering (prior contact and prior exclusive contract acts) and exclusive contract violations are spreading like an epidemic from major agencies to small agencies. Agencies are no longer in the position of the ’upper hand‘,” he explained.

Secretary General Choi said in particular, “Respect between both parties is necessary,” and mentioned the case of New Jeans member Hani last year, when she was told by her manager at Belift Lab, a subsidiary of parent company HYBE, to ‘ignore you’, and claimed that her agency Adore was not fulfilling its responsibility to protect its artists.

He said, “A manager who receives an annual salary of 50 million won told New Jeans, who earns hundreds of millions of won in profits, to ‘ignore you’. The singer demanded an apology, but the manager said he did not say such a thing,” he said. “I still don’t know what the truth is about this incident, and I don’t want to take sides. I just need to ask myself whether I tried to listen to both parties’ claims fairly. If I listened to a famous singer’s claims, I should have also listened to the opinions of an unknown manager.”

He also said, “The famous are innocent, the unknown are guilty. The phenomenon of their claims becoming established facts just because they have high recognition and fans is accelerating,” and pointed out, “Who can protect the human rights of the agency? We need to look back and see who is truly the socially disadvantaged.”



Reporter Yoo Ji-hye yjh0304@donga.com

This article is automatically translated using Google AI. If you notice any inaccuracies, please let us know at allkstar@donga.com.