Am I the only one siding with Warner Music Korea in this Fifty Fifty case?

Quote from WhyKnock

I personally see no wrong about the owner of Fifty Fifty being cheated out of his investment, the group and everything.

I think Warner Music Korea wants to set up a precedent to snatch talented acts from the rapacious hands of the owners, who are often greedy, short sighted and without vision, only interested upon getting rich quick.

It seems Siahn's company did most of the work, while Attrakt didn't really do anything other than media play.

Again, it is the classic story of the landowner versus those who build things on others' land. In Korea, when a business did well in a rented property, the landowner often doubled or tripled the rent, or outright stole the business citing some obscure clause. Korea being an agrarian country to begin with, the courts usually sided with the landowner, which eventually led to a decline of entrepreneurship there.

Melon owning a digital music service and also an entertainment company, creating a huge conflict of interest, led to the improbable situation of IU's position being at least equal, or higher, than BTS which had conquered the world, in Korea which led to a very serious disruption of BTS' activity.

In the FF case, there are a lot of gray areas, since Siahn provided 3 of 4 members (only Keena belonged to Attrakt to begin with), so other than possibly Keena, the members are more loyal to Siahn than the loudmouthed owner, who basically did nothing but own the name and we all know how he will run the group if left to himself, seen from the examples of HotShot and Ha Sungwoon.

The owner of Attrakt can yap till high heaven, but it is clear that he is not really needed for FF's continued success.

I want WMK to prevail,get rid of the Attrakt owner, and let it run FF a ccording to what it sees fit. If WMK wins, we will probably never see impossible situations like IU being equal to BTS in Korea, or smaller acts languishing under bad owners, again.

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It would be shortsighted to allow this. It wouldn't be just the Attrakt CEO being cheated, but all of the investors that invested in the corporation of Attrakt.

Allowing poaching done like this can only disincentivize small businesses from investing in the industry. After all, if someone is able to finagle and scheme under their bosses to steal IPs created from the capital that they worked to have invested in the project, then why would anyone take the risk of beginning the project in the first place? When that project can essentially be taken by a larger corporation at any time?

South Korea already has a serious issue with its conglomerates exerting outsized control over many aspects of society, there's no reason to make it any harder for small businesses there from competing from an already disadvantageous position.

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I think Warner Music Korea wants to set up a precedent to snatch talented acts from the rapacious hands of the owners, who are often greedy, short sighted and without vision, only interested upon getting rich quick.

There already is a way for WMK to snatch talented acts from the labels: they can buy out the contracts and ownership of the IPs. The expense varies of course, but the avenue is already there. Also, there's some tension here: WMK wants to snatch up a group that, at the time, was in stride of an international hit, which was built up by another company; they would seem to be the ones trying to get rich quick, skipping over the tougher work of establishing a group, scouting members, writing songs in a market that traditionally favors acts from a handful of corporations. That seems at odds with what you're suggesting.

Quote from soshixbang

Fifty Fifty's agency Attract files 20 billion won lawsuit against Warner Music for alleged tampering

http://www.celuvmedia.com/article.php?aid=1729638232487168007

Sorry for bringing this thread back up after 1 year, couldn't find any related Attrakt/Warner Music Korea thread.

I assume that Attrakt is secretly trying to settle for some undisclosed amount here? There's no benefit to a prolonged legal battle with WMK, one that I suspect WKM can drag out for years.

Quote from WhyKnock

Now we all know Attrakt's approach with 5050 went nowhere.

If Ablume goes anywhere, Jeon will try to collect something from there.

Their first week of sales improved compared to their last release after a year of no releases. That's pretty good for a nugu in a field where only large groups can take extended breaks while keeping momentum.

Quote from Adelaidestevsn

Both parties fell into the one-hit-wonder trap, thinking they were bigger than they actually were. In the end, it only led to their downfall. At least it serves as a reminder for future companies and members to not let fleeting success convince them that they’ve already made it

This is just not accurate.

No one thought that they were bigger than they were since the primary motivation for the members seems to be the fear of more debt and not being able to pay it off. Allegedly, the managing company just tried to poach them to get them to sign to Warner Korea for the manager's financial benefit, and WMK was okay to get them onboard.

The girls and their parents were fed false information into thinking that: 1) CEO was saddling them with more debt for loans that weren't being used for their direct group expenses, 2) the CEO was turning down CFs, brand deals, and a buy out which would hinder the group paying off an increased debt, 3) the manager was the reason for the success of the girls, with his industry connections, and 4) the CEO was incompetent (may actually be true). All while the manager allegedly forged signatures to reduce revenue percentages from the writers and group members. As well as being the one to turn down CFs and brand deals that the group was being offered.

No one involved thought that they were hot shit besides maybe Warner Korea. In fact, everyone was stressed because they were missing the opportunity to capitalize on the attention (the biggest difference being the reason why each person thought that they were missing the opportunities).

Quote from WhyKnock

The foreign fans were not fooled.

Jeon was probably pushed by somebody to act like that, but given his long history of failure this was not surprising and with the arrival of 5th gen it will go nowhere.

If you mean the boycotters found solely on Twitter, then they were fooled but just by the other side. Western fans have a tendency to side with the idol no matter what the case unless it's something outright immoral in their eyes.

Quote from WhyKnock

Jeon's group's song was, I have to say, pretty mediocre.

The very reason Cupid got popular was because the singing styles of the two members singing in English were similar to Doja Cat but without DC's sharpness, something which is hard to duplicate since few Koreans sing like that.

Which is why the foreign listeners were not fooled.

I find the vocals of Aran and Sio as the primary reason for the song's success not convincing because streams and views were largely concentrated and remain so on "Cupid." It didn't translate well to other songs in their discography, which also heavily feature Aran's and Sio's vocals over Keena's and Saena's. It seems clear in that respect that the song itself is what's popular and not so much the components that makeup the song, further boosted by being released around Valentine's Day.