🔗 2025-02-27 Team Bunnies Notice

On Wednesday, February 19, the Korea Management Federation (KMF) and other organizations called for policies to eradicate “tampering,” citing the “NewJeans case.” In their statement, these organizations claimed they were “not attempting to discuss a dispute between a specific agency and artists,” yet they only represented the positions of HYBE and ADOR, and while urging parties to “refrain from waging a public opinion war to resolve the matter,” they released their joint statement just before the hearing date for the injunction involving specific parties to the case. Moreover, their announcement of a press conference on Thursday, February 27 is itself conducting a “proxy public opinion war” on behalf of a specific agency.

1. The five organizations represent only the agencies’ positions, not the entire K-pop industry.

The five organizations, including the Korea Management Federation, claimed to be issuing an “appeal” for “the public interest of the healthy development of the K-pop industry,” but the content only represents the agencies’ positions, and without ascertaining the accurate facts, they cite a specific case as an example of tampering. If they were truly concerned about the public interest of the entire K-pop industry, they should not have hastily released a statement representing only the position of a specific agency making unilateral claims based on unconfirmed facts, but should have made efforts to mediate the current situation by listening to the voices of all parties involved.

The growth of the K-pop industry was not achieved solely by agencies and investment capital. There are artists who stake their lives and pour all their efforts into their careers from their teenage years, and there are producers and creators who work through the night under intense labor conditions to create music, performances, and content. And there are the fandoms—the driving force behind K-pop’s growth—who, despite having no financial compensation or vested interests, go beyond the role of mere consumers with nothing but hearts full of support and encouragement to spread the works created by artists and creators to the world. However, recently the five organizations have been taking actions biased toward specific interest groups, forgetting the essence of the K-pop industry.

While remaining silent on practices that undermine industry fairness, such as album pushing and bulk buying, they do not hesitate to make threatening statements about excluding specific artists’ digital releases and albums from charts and blocking them from broadcasts and award shows. Is it right for associations that have a responsibility to reflect objective performance and maintain chart fairness to openly make biased statements representing the position of a specific agency on matters where the facts have not even been verified?

When the “HYBE Industry Trend Report,” which shocked and disgusted all industry stakeholders, artists, and fans and damaged trust in the entire K-pop industry, was revealed through the National Assembly audit, the five organizations did not issue any statement or give HYBE any warning. They have even taken a stance opposing the “choreography copyright” that the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is seeking to introduce, undermining the essence of the K-pop industry where diversity and creativity should be respected and protected. Is it truly the duty of associations to represent only the interests of those in power and commit violence against the relatively weak, who have no organizations or institutions to protect and represent their rights?

2. The “HYBE-ADOR situation” is not an issue of tampering, but the result of an irrational parent company’s breach of contract and violation of rights against its subsidiary.

The “HYBE situation” is not an issue of artist tampering; rather, it is a case where the parent company HYBE seized management control from former CEO Min Hee-jin, who was the CEO and shareholder of its subsidiary ADOR. Despite the court’s ruling that there were no grounds for dismissal of the former CEO and that her term as CEO should be guaranteed according to the shareholder agreement, HYBE violated this and dismissed the subsidiary’s CEO through irregular means, undermining its independence, while also damaging the reputation and credibility of its own artists through a malicious public opinion war in the process. HYBE has violated contracts by using its position as the majority shareholder without guaranteeing the independence and diversity of its subsidiary labels, infringing on the rights of the subsidiary agency, producers, creators, and artists, and impeding the healthy and sustainable development of K-pop. If HYBE had not violated the contract, this situation would never have occurred.

Fans have consistently demanded that HYBE “restore the ‘original ADOR’ where NewJeans’ activities and support are possible,” and former CEO Min Hee-jin and the NewJeans members tried to protect “ADOR” and “NewJeans” by every possible means until the very end. Ignoring the contributions of NewJeans and former ADOR members, including the former CEO, from ADOR’s founding process to NewJeans’ success, while omitting HYBE’s breach of contract and framing NewJeans as if they committed tampering is a unilateral claim by HYBE and current ADOR management. What is the intention of associations that represent such one-sided, biased claims?

3. Denying entertainers’ right to terminate contracts is an unjust agency-centric logic.

The five organizations are distorting the NewJeans members’ exercise of their termination rights based on their exclusive contract as if it were an act that shakes the foundation of the K-pop industry. However, this is a claim that clearly contradicts the “Standard Exclusive Contract” issued by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. If an agency breaches the contract, the singer may request rectification within 14 days, and if the breach is not rectified within that period, the singer is guaranteed the right to terminate the contract. This provision was established to eradicate the past malpractice of entertainment agencies using their superior position to exercise unfair control over their trainees and singers, excessively infringing on their basic rights. The claims of the five organizations are nothing but biased arguments that ignore entertainers’ contractual rights and represent only the position of entertainment agencies.

NewJeans terminated their contract through legitimate procedures and are therefore currently free to engage in activities. If the five organizations were truly neutral, they should first hold Chairman Bang Si-hyuk accountable for his illegal actions in attempting to sabotage the first performance of members now active under the new name NJZ.

4. It is HYBE and ADOR that have violated “faithful performance of the exclusive contract” and continue to wage a malicious public opinion war.

The five organizations are misleading the public as if the NewJeans members unilaterally terminated their contract and waged a public opinion war, threatening the K-pop industry. However, it is HYBE and ADOR that violated “faithful performance of the exclusive contract.”

HYBE is a company that not only wrote vulgar content disparaging other companies’ artists and fans in the “HYBE Industry Trend Report” that top executives reviewed weekly, but also devised strategies to keep its own artists in check with statements like “just discard the ‘New’ and set up a new game” regarding NewJeans. It has been exposed by journalists that they deployed “cyber wreckers” to create negative public opinion against specific individuals, and that HYBE’s PR team engaged in improper solicitation with the media to damage the reputation and credibility of artists from their own subsidiary.

Particularly in April of last year, over just three days, HYBE massively distributed content containing false information to the media, resulting in a total of 1,767 articles being published. This media play, which occurred with less than a week until NewJeans’ comeback, was an intentional public opinion manipulation that had lost its critical function, and it caused serious psychological harm to the artists. This goes beyond simple information delivery and is closer to public opinion manipulation deliberately intended to damage the artists’ activities.

K-pop is not an industry that moves solely on investor capital. It is an industry built together through the planning capabilities of producers and creators, and the talent and efforts of artists, all harmonized on a foundation of trust. It is HYBE and current ADOR management that broke this trust and undermined the independence, originality, and creativity of their subsidiary labels. It is also they who have made the K-pop industry murky with their malicious public opinion war. It is also HYBE and ADOR that publicly announced an illegal audit last year and continue to wage a malicious public opinion war to this day, distributing malicious articles through specific entertainment media outlets, repeatedly publishing personal attacks and hostile articles against members, including minors.

5. If you truly care about the healthy development of the K-pop industry, start with self-regulation.

Finally, among the executives of the five organizations, there is someone who was indicted and sentenced to prison for child abuse and aiding and abetting the abuse of artists under their care, yet continues to serve as an association chairman. There are also individuals openly active who have been directly or indirectly involved in major incidents, including cases where they received warnings from the court and the Fair Trade Commission for obstructing activities through retaliatory broadcast bans against artists whose contract terminations were legally recognized as valid; cases where they were found guilty in court for digital music price-fixing that caused massive harm to K-pop consumers; vote manipulation and broadcast rigging cases; and cases where individuals were sentenced to prison for embezzling 18.2 billion won in music copyright fees from domestic music platform members and rights holders.

We would like to ask whether those who are responsible for human rights violations against trainees and artists under their agencies, album pushing and bulk buying that undermine fair competition, excessive chart competition, and consumer rights violations that exploit fan devotion—issues constantly pointed out as dark shadows contributing to the decline and slowing growth of the K-pop industry—are qualified to criticize specific artists and claim “industry crisis” while remaining silent about the chronic ailments of agencies.

If the five organizations, including the Korea Management Federation, truly care about the healthy and sustainable development of the K-pop industry, before intervening through a proxy public opinion war by taking HYBE and ADOR’s side on a specific case for which the court has not yet rendered a decision, we urge them to first self-regulate and rectify the chronic problems of the K-pop industry: the abuse of power and tyranny by agencies, and the personal attacks on entertainers through collusion with entertainment media outlets.