Topic > Unveiling the Evil Behind Unfair Contracts in K-pop Music

South Korea's music business is big business in Asia. As Korean pop (K-Pop) targets foreign countries such as Europe and the United States, this will definitely force a change in the way entertainment companies treat their artists. In order for entertainment companies to protect their investments, these companies have individuals in the groups sign contracts, binding them to the company for a certain number of years. According to BBC journalist Lucy Williamson, some of K-Pop's biggest pop stars were built through slave contracts. But what do we know about the slave contract? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay A slave contract is a long-term, often unfair agreement signed by K-pop artists with their management companies. It is widely known on the Internet that the contract between an artist and his management companies is long, allows little personal freedom such as appointments or vacation days, schedules full of emotions and perhaps most notable is that they do not promise when or even if the trainee debuts. So we called it the slavery contract. However, these are not exhaustive lists of everything that a “slavery contract” entails because no one would know all the details due to the confidential nature of such a contract, but these are the circumstances that have caused the most concern. In recent years there has been a lot of talk about these slavery contracts, in which artists signed with the company for several years. For example, six years ago, the most successful boy group Dong Bang Shin Ki took its management, namely SM Entertainment, to court over a contract of more than 13 years and argued that the stipulated contract was for 13 years and was too long, too restrictive. and gave them almost none of the profits of their success. As a result, they won the case, and the ruling prompted the Fair Trade Commission to enforce the model contract that attempted to improve the deals and benefits artists received from their management companies. After the boy group revealed the ugly truth behind their contracts, the news agency discovered that Girls' Generation's Yoona's contract was the same length as Dong Bang Shin Ki's 13-year contract. Another famous boy group, Super Junior, each of the members has a contract lasting from 5 to 13 years. The members of "SHINee" each have a contract that lasts 6 to 13 years. These artists are all signed to SM Entertainment. Despite this, do we know why these artists sign these contracts? No, we don't know because very few of us are personally involved in this situation and we all know practically nothing about it. However it could be combinations of the young age at which these trainees start the process and the promise of money. One well-publicized case is that of Super Junior member Hangeng against his former agency, SM Entertainment. Likewise, he was tied to SM Entertainment for 13 years, which was illegal. Hangeng said he was initially hired to become a trainee for SM Entertainment to help his family financially. However, he eventually filed a lawsuit against MS as his health began to deteriorate, along with several other claims of an unfair slave contract. The exceptionally long duration of the contract alone is immoral and illegal, but these management agencies defend themselves with their own reasons. for doing it. They argued that it would be impossible to run an agency if every artist asked to review their own".