“‘The New Jeans situation has already become a problem for the entire K-pop industry beyond the two parties.”

Five Korean popular music organizations have expressed concern over the independent actions of girl group New Jeans, which unilaterally announced the termination of their contract with their agency Adore, saying it “is an act that harms the foundation of the K-pop industry.”

The Korea Management Association, the Korea Entertainment Producers Association, the Korea Music Label Industry Association, the Korea Recording Industry Association, and the Korea Music Content Association held a press conference for music producers to protect fair rights in the music industry at the JW Marriott Hotel Seoul in Seocho-gu, Seoul on the 27th. The event was attended by representatives of each organization, including Choi Kwang-ho, Secretary General of the Korea Music Content Association, Lee Nam-kyung, Director of Korea Management, and Choi Jae-woo, CEO of F&F Entertainment.

It is highly unusual for five popular music organizations to hold such a large-scale press conference. It has been understood that the organizations prepared the press conference because they judged that cases of exclusive contract violations and tampering (prior contact and prior exclusive contract acts) in the K-pop industry have been rapidly increasing.

The five organizations stated on this day, “Exclusive contracts are the foundation of the K-pop industry that connects agencies and singers. They are the knot that connects the partnership between the corporate business entity called the agency and the individual business entity called the singer,” and appealed, “It is difficult to expect the development and promotion of the K-pop industry in a reality where this ‘knot’ is under threat.”

Some have also pointed out that this press conference is targeting the ‘New Jeans incident’, which is pointed out as a factor that has aggravated the tampering issue. Regarding this, Choi Kwang-ho, Secretary General of the Korea Music Content Association, said, “We are not trying to take sides. Also, the incident itself is a bilateral issue between New Jeans and Adore,” but explained, “However, since the incident is affecting the entire industry, we are speaking out as an association that represents the rights and interests of music producers.”

In connection with this, the case of conflict between New Jeans’ Hani and the manager of Belift Lab, an affiliate of parent company Hive, from last year was also mentioned. Previously, Hani had raised the issue of workplace bullying, saying that the manager of Belift Lab had told her to “ignore me.” After that, a revision to the Popular Culture and Arts Industry Development Act, the so-called “New Jeans Hani Act,” was proposed.

Regarding this, Secretary General Choi emphasized, “Since the National Assembly and the government are taking action and legislation is being made regarding the incident, it goes beyond individuals and becomes a problem for the K-pop industry.”

Director Lee Nam-kyung of Korea Management also pointed out, citing the case of New Jeans‘ “unilateral termination of exclusive contract”, that “it is an act that threatens the reliability of exclusive contracts. It means that celebrities can overturn the validity of exclusive contracts at any time.”

In this press conference, it was also raised that, above all, all disputes “must be resolved within the boundaries of the law,” and the need for conservative judgment by the court on mediation by a content mediation agency and injunctions to suspend the validity of exclusive contracts was also raised.



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.