The pioneer group of the K-pop boom in Japan Tohoshinki who went through a breakup turmoil recently appeared at a music event at Tokyo’s Yoyogi Stadium after one year and one month of silence. The group resumed their activities with two members Yunho (24) and Changmin (22) and received the unchanging warm welcome from their Japanese fans. Their new song “Why?” also acquired the top spot on Oricon Daily Chart on the day of its release.
However, in October 2009, in the midst of their breakup turmoil, Seoul District Court disclosed a “temporary measure” decision whose content was shocking.
“All rights and privileges that the group get from TV programme and stage performance as well as public activities in and outside of Korea belong to the production company.”
“All copyrights including the copyrights for lyrics, music, arrangement; reproducing right, duplicating right, recording right, distributing right, broadcasting right, performing right, karaoke distributing right, and the right to produce secondary products are all transferred to the company.”
An official who knows a lot about Japan & Korea’s entertainment industry explained:
“In Japan, artists are paid a part of their singing right, and copyrights of lyrics, music and arrangement. At that time, among the 5 members, each other them were paid 0.4-1% of their profits. Moreover, if they were not able to sell more than 50,000 copies, then there would be no guarantee for their pay.”
There was also a penalty. If there was a violation in the contract, then they will be required to pay a total amount of 3 times of the investment to be made on them plus 2 times the profits during the rest 6 years of the remaining contract as compensation. “The penalty for breach of contract is more than 10 billion yen ($121 million),” said the official.
During the breakup turmoil, Jaejoong (24), Yoochun (24) and Junsu (24) performed their activities in Korea and other countries under the name “JYJ” while still being in a conflict with their former agency.
Recently, Junsu made a comment about his former agency on Twitter, “I thought that the 5 of us thought of him/them as our enemy… but you don’t seem to see him/them as your enemy,” expressing his feelings of distance with the other 2 members.
The support of the fans are also complicated. There are fans who say, “I want to see the 5 of them once again,” and there are also fans who severely criticizing the 3 members calling them “ungrateful”. The style of Korean entertainment industry is to invest largely in their idols, bind them with long-term contracts, and carefully train the newbies. It is probably hard for Japanese to understand this style, but with that force, the Korean wave is currently sweeping over Asia.
T/N: The source is a source affiliated with Sanspo, one of the biggest newspapers in Japan.
source: Zakzak
translation: linhkawaii @ OneTVXQ.com
credits: OneTVXQ.com { One World. One Red Ocean. One TVXQ! }
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