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K-Pop's Dark Side: Strict Contracts Plague Stars
5 Nov
Summary
- K-pop labels invest heavily in trainees with low success rates.
- Artists are often treated as assets, not business partners.
- Restrictive contracts are central to the K-pop economic model.
The K-pop industry, despite its immense global popularity and significant soft power for South Korea, grapples with persistent accusations of abuse.
Aspiring stars, often teenagers, sign as trainees with record companies. These labels fund extensive training, housing, and even cosmetic surgery. However, the economic model is akin to high-risk investment, where a few successful acts must subsidize numerous failures.
This financial structure necessitates extreme control over artists, manifesting in highly restrictive contracts. Industry insiders and former performers describe feeling like corporate assets rather than business partners.
Modifying this model to grant artists more autonomy is considered unfeasible by labels, as it could disrupt the established business framework. Similar practices, once common in the US, have largely diminished.
