A bill is being promoted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to require management companies to provide their affiliated entertainers with settlement details and the corresponding accounting records in 'writing' (including electronic documents) at least once a year.
According to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism on the 24th, a partial amendment bill to the Enforcement Decree of the Public Culture and Arts Industry Development Act, which contains these provisions, has been announced for legislative review until the 31st.
Article 14 of the current Public Culture and Arts Industry Development Act requires public culture and arts planners (management companies) to disclose accounting records, such as accounting books, without delay when demanded by public culture and arts artists (affiliated entertainers). However, conflicts often arose from different interpretations of 'disclosure' between the management companies and the entertainers. There were also claims that it was not easy for entertainers to demand data from management companies.
Singer and actor Lee Seung-gi has been accused of not receiving proper settlement for music usage royalties from the management company he was associated with for 18 years in 2022, raising discussions about the need to revise the settlement regulations.
Prior to this, Lee Seung-gi, who debuted under Hook Entertainment in 2004, filed a lawsuit against representative Kwon Jin-young and others in November 2022 for violating laws related to aggravated punishment for specific economic crimes, claiming that music revenue settlements had not been conducted.
Following this, Hook paid Lee Seung-gi a settlement amount of 5.4 billion won. In this process, representative Kwon claimed that, in addition to the previously paid settlement amount of 1.3 billion won, they would also pay an additional 4.1 billion won for unsettled music royalties and interest, claiming that they had overpaid advertising revenue and needed to recover some money, which led to a lawsuit for confirmation of the non-existence of debt.
Lee Seung-gi's side asserted that the music revenue from October 2009 to September 2022, while he was affiliated with Hook, was about 9.6 billion won, arguing that this was the limited amount of music revenue during the five years from June 2004 to August 2009.
Lee Seung-gi attended the trial in a defendant capacity and appealed, stating, 'Please ensure that the vicious cycle of junior entertainers suffering from settlements does not continue.'
Following the conflict between Lee Seung-gi and Hook, the National Assembly passed a bill known as the 'Lee Seung-gi Incident Prevention Law' (amendment to the Public Culture and Arts Industry Development Act) in September of last year, which mandates that management companies disclose accounting records related to revenue settlements even 'without requests from affiliated entertainers.' This amendment is set to take effect on the 23rd of next month.
According to the amendment bill, public culture and arts planners are required to provide accounting records related to the affiliated public culture and arts practitioner and the remuneration to be paid, using one of the prescribed methods at least once a year, starting from the date they enter into a contract for public cultural services, even if there is no request from the affiliated public culture and arts practitioner.
It also specified 'written delivery' (including electronic documents) and 'mail or electronic mail' as methods of providing accounting data related to settlements. Until now, there has been no specific provision regulating the method of data provision, and some management companies have only allowed entertainers to 'view' the data, without providing copies.