The Ethics of the South Korean Music Industry

In South Korea, not just anyone can be a professional performer. There are many strict rules,
requirements, and high expectations a person must follow in order to start training after signing
with an entertainment company. People training to become professional performers in South
Korea are expected to use impeccable manners and must look aesthetically pleasing for their
audience (with help from very strict dieting and personal trainers). They must also have a talent
in one or more of these areas: dancing, singing, or rapping. Being able to meet these
requirements makes the performer considered “The Perfect Package” in the public eye. If you
don’t follow these requirements and expectations, you definitely won’t be able to become a
professional performer.

The term ‘BEP’ stands for “Break Even Point”. It is a loan arrangement that is commonly used
in the entertainment industry. When a new performer signs a contract with an entertainment
company, the company provides a BEP to the performer to pay for their training, grooming,
feeding, accommodations, and transportation. The BEP is supposed to pay for pretty much
everything needed to make the performer into a “star” for their entire career. When the
performer makes their debut, starts selling singles, producing albums and putting on concerts,
all of the money that gets collected from sales doesn’t go to the actual artist themselves.
Instead, the money goes to the company, which then goes to pay back the BEP, which is the
investment the company had put into the performer. When the money that is earned goes back
into the BEP, it’s like paying off a debt or a loan. But the problem is, is that once the performer
sells millions of copies of their album, you think that the money that was made will all go to pay
off the BEP. The truth is it doesn’t. In most cases, only 40% of the album sales go towards the
BEP. The other 60% would just go to the company to pay for their fees and expenses. So the
artists themselves usually earn little to nothing on album and concert sales. Still remember that
the performers are living comfortably because the BEP is still paying towards their housing and
food which puts the performers far into debt without them knowing. There are no obligations
saying that a company has to tell a certain performer how much BEP is owed, which leaves
performers praying that their company isn’t overspending on them.

The BEP lays out how much artists usually get paid under these contracts. As mentioned
earlier, about 40% of sales that gets collected goes to the performer’s BEP, and the other 60%
goes to the company itself. With that 60% of sales the company keeps has to be given to
someone right? Yes, it does. The money collected goes straight to the owner of the company, in
which he/she distributes it to whomever they like. The owner of the company can keep most of
the money and distribute little to the workers or vice versa. In most cases, if an album that a
performer produces earns $50,000 in sales, the performer gets to keep 1% of sales. If the
album earns $100,000 or more in sales, the performer usually earns at least 3% of sales. If the
performer is a part of a group, and together they’ve sold $100,000 or more in sales, that 3% of
sales has to be distributed between every member, but it isn’t always split evenly. The
performer’s race and ethnicity will also come into play when others are determining how much
their portion is worth.

The reason performers in South Korea receive little to nothing on pay is because, K-POP
(“Korean Pop Music”) is very expensive to produce. The groups are ‘highly manufactured and
can require a team of managers, choreographers and wardrobe assistants.’
Sophiayulessonbuilder.wordpress.com states. There’s also the cost of dance and vocal
teachers that a performer needs in order to succeed. The company obviously has to pay these
teachers and assistants fairly so no issues arise in the future, which causes the worth of the
performer’s BEP to rise even higher. Simply speaking, if a performer’s company spends a lot of
money on their activities as a performer, they’ll have less for money for themselves in the end.