Category: SM

After a two-year hiatus from the Korean music industry, TVXQ made a triumphant return last week. On January 12th, members Yunho and Changmin held a press conference to discuss the various issues surrounding their comeback.

Yunho started, “We came back for the first time in two years and three months, and I swelled with emotions when I saw how many fans came. I wanted to show everyone an amazing live and worked hard to achieve it, but unfortunately, I caught a cold.  Although I received IV treatments, my voice still didn’t improve in the morning, so I worried a lot.  It still hasn’t improved yet.”

Changmin added, “I don’t think I was as nervous as I thought I would be. It was really exciting and fun.”

When asked about the efforts they took on as a two-membered TVXQ, Yunho replied, “While preparing for the album with only two members, I thought that I had to make it live up to the standards of ‘TVXQ’.  TVXQ was known for its strong performances and lives, so there wasn’t a single thing we could slack off on. We brought about a lot of changes on the high notes, and switched parts for every different genre.”

SM Entertainment received a firm order from the Fair Trade Commission to revise the unfair contracts which bind SNSD, Super Junior, SHINee, and many others to them.

On December 23rd, the Fair Trade Commission stated, “We gave them a warning to voluntarily correct the unfair exclusive contracts that their celebrities and trainees have signed. [SME] is to reduce all contract lengths by three years.”

This decision by the FTC was based off of a complaint made by TVXQ’s fanclub, Cassiopeia. The group alleged that SM Entertainment was using their status to pressure a disadvantaged (’slave’) contract onto TVXQ.

SM Entertainment’s violation, as disclosed by the FTC, lies in the unfair contract conditions. These conditions included forcing artists to sign on for a long period of time, an excessive penalty provision for breach of contract, and a one-sided scheduling of activities. There’s also a clause that allows SME to extend contracts for overseas activities without first consulting the artist in question.

News out of the latest batch of translated reports state that former member of Super Junior, Hangeng, WON his lawsuit against SM to void his contract with the company. 

According to translated reports from “Star Today” and MyDaily, Seoul District Count ruled in favor of Hangeng saying that the contracts made with him were invalid.

Regardless of what happens from now on, it’s a devastating blow to SM because there now is independent validation that their contract with Hangeng is invalid. And thus, it may speak volumes about the way SM contracts with their teenage stars. 

What this decision does is to illustrate to non-fans — and to people who aren’t paying that much attention to the details of such things — that these artists aren’t simply imagining the serious problems with contractual agreements between SM and at least some of their artists.

According to Yonhap News (17 December), Korean company SM Entertainment’s founder, and largest shareholder Lee Soo Man sold away a portion of his shares on 15 December, cashing in for about 7.8 billion won.

Korean Economic Investment Industry expressed on 16 December, that Lee Soo Man, on the 15th of this month, sold off 500,000 shares at the price of 15,671 won per share. This was approximately 7% lower than the closing price of 16,850 won from the previous day. In total, he received 7.83550 billion won.

Hello, this is SM Entertainment. Since a series of events occurred including three members of TVXQ breaking away from the team, we SM Entertainment (noted as SM) have been refraining from having U-Know Yunho and Choikang Changmin participate in music-related activities for a long period of over a year. For the feelings and dreams of […]

SM Entertainment’s preliminary injunction against JYJ (Kim Jaejoong, Kim Junsu and Park Yoochun) to prohibit the sales of their first global album, The Beginning, has been withdrawn.

On October 27th, JYJ’s PR Agency Prain said, “On October 21st, through the Seoul Central District Court, SM Entertainment withdrew their preliminary injunction to prohibit the sales of JYJ’s first album, The Beginning.”

SM Entertainment filed the injunction on October 12th believing that JYJ had signed an exclusive contract with CJeS Entertainment which would cause a dual contract situation.

However, CJeS is the agency that JYJ hired to handle their management work just like Prain has been hired to handle JYJ’s PR.