An image of the SM Entertainment emblem is displayed on the Okay-pop company’s headquarters in Seongsu-dong of Seongdong District, japanese Seoul. [YONHAP]

 
SM Entertainment’s artists and their followers are getting used as nothing however pretext for a battle for management over one of many largest leisure corporations in Korea, critics stated in a debate held Friday concerning the continued inventory sale fiasco surrounding SM Entertainment.
 
“It seems as though the companies are only using the artists and fans as a shield for themselves,” pop music critic Kim Do-heon stated on the occasion, co-organized by nonprofit activist group Cultural Action and the Seoul National University Asia Center.
 
Culture critics and teachers took half within the “How to view the SM Entertainment management battle” debate, held at Seoul National University in southern Seoul.
  

“It’s true that the artists and fans do not have a say in the business aspect,” he continued. “What can fans do when the manager says that they’re going to do something? But what the companies keep ignoring is that when it comes to the K-pop industry, fans are not just consumers — they are the key to its success.”
 
Since early February, when SM Entertainment’s board first introduced that will probably be issuing new inventory for Kakao after which the Okay-pop company’s founder Lee Soo-man fought again by promoting his shares to HYBE, all events concerned have been claiming that they’ve one of the best curiosity of the artists, followers and shareholders at coronary heart.
 
HYBE and SM Entertainment each agree that tilting away from the outdated technique, the place all music manufacturing trusted founder Lee, will assure SM Entertainment elevated revenue for shareholders’ dividends, creativity for artists and content material for followers. But they differ on which firm can greatest ship on such outcomes.
 
Fans have been expressing their dismay on the HYBE-SM takeover on on-line boards, and half of SM Entertainment’s workers have additionally come collectively to situation a joint assertion opposing the take care of HYBE. Still, there was no official channel of communication for followers, workers or, most notably, the artists.
 

Critics and teachers participate in a debate titled “How to view the SM Entertainment management battle” at Seoul National University in southern Seoul on Friday. [YOON SO-YEON]

 
“Both companies are arguing that the current brawl is hurting artists and trainees,” Kim stated. “If they are so important, then why has no one asked their opinion before all this happened? The reason so many people are being confused and devastated by all this is that nothing was shared with them beforehand.”
 
HYBE argues that its international administration construction — established with the immense international recognition of its boy band BTS — will give it the higher hand in rising SM artists’ affect abroad, particularly by nurturing the so-called by-product mental property (IP) companies.
 
Derivative IP companies consult with the manufacturing and gross sales of secondary content material primarily based on main IP — the artists, their music and performances — corresponding to associated movies, webtoons, video games and merchandise.
 
But such plans to make cash on by-product IP is not going to work if followers develop uninterested in the battle and determine to stroll away from SM Entertainment altogether, in accordance with Lee Jee-heng, a Ph.D. researcher on the Institute for Gender and Affect Studies at Dong-A University.
 
“Derivative IP does not work without a robust fandom, but fandoms cannot be produced artificially,” Lee stated. “The achievements that BTS has accomplished in the Western world were because of the BTS members’ content, their personality and their narrative, not by a systematic execution of the company. HYBE arguing that it can reenact BTS’s legacy denies the fandoms’ role in K-pop.”
 

Images of LED vans parked in entrance of the HYBE headquarters in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on Feb. 28 [SCREEN CAPTURE]

Attorneys from regulation agency Yoon & Yang head to the Seoul Eastern District Court on Feb. 22 for the primary listening to of the injunction filed for SM Entertainment issuing new shares to promote to Kakao. [YONHAP]

 
Concerns from smaller rivals that the SM-HYBE or SM-Kakao merger might each result in a monopolization of Okay-pop are usually not so legitimate within the international perspective, particularly in comparison with the three largest music corporations on the planet: Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music.
 
“Can we really say that these companies are hindering the diversity in music?” critic Kim stated. “If HYBE does decide to change SM Entertainment’s style, that will be to their loss because the strength of a multi-label system only comes to fruition if you respect each label’s uniqueness.”
 
One main downside that has been unearthed amid the feud is that there was no labor union at SM Entertainment, regardless that it is likely one of the oldest and largest corporations in Okay-pop, and that the founder alone was left with such dominant energy over the corporate.
 

An announcement launched by a coalition of 208 SM Entertainment staff opposing the ″hostile takeover″ by HYBE [SCREEN CAPTURE]

SM Entertainment was based in 1995 by Lee, JYP Entertainment by Park Jin-young in 1997, YG Entertainment by Yang Hyun-suk in 1996 and HYBE — then often known as Big Hit Entertainment — by Bang Si-hyuk in 2005. All of the founders have been directing the music and idea for the artists at their companies, therefore the distinct fashion of artists that debut with every company.
 
“The statement from SM Entertainment staff broke my heart,” critic Seo Jeong Min-gap stated. “Whether or not Lee Soo-man is at fault, the fact that the employees could only talk about it now means that there is no union to represent their voices. The realities of the entertainment industry, where laborers’ rights are not protected, came to light.”
 
Whichever firm wins, the top results of the battle will mark a historic second in Okay-pop, in accordance with Prof. Lee Dong-yeun on the Department of Korean Traditional Arts Theory on the Korea National University of Arts.
 
“The results will change the K-pop landscape like never before,” he stated. “K-pop has been around for 30 years, and this will be the most pivotal moment yet. At a time where the old, pre-modern management structures are being ousted from the market, this battle sheds light on essential issues such as the generation shift of first-generation K-pop agency founders and monopolization of content.”

BY YOON SO-YEON [yoon.soyeon@joongang.co.kr]