Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
After Pledis Entertainment’s Han Sung Soo was reported to have unfairly profited off royalties from IZ*ONE’s songs by giving his wife songwriting credits, Han Sung Soo has now withdrawn his wife’s credits as So Jay and will return the royalties.
On June 15, Dispatch released a report stating that they had checked with the Korea Music Copyright Association (KOMCA) to find that only one out of the previous eight songs were registered under the name So Jay (Han Sung Soo’s wife). So Jay was no longer registered as a lyricist for any song and only had rights to IZ*ONE’s “We Together” as a composer. According to Dispatch, Han Sung Soo will also be returning the royalties he gained unfairly under his wife’s name. A source from Pledis Entertainment confirmed that the report is true. They said to Sports Kyunghyang, “The report stating that CEO Han Sung Soo gave up his rights to IZ*ONE’s songs and will return the royalties he had unfairly taken under his wife’s name is true. The report states that it was seven songs [for which he gave up his copyrights], but his rights to the remaining song ‘We Together’ will also be [given up]. He now owns no portion of IZ*ONE’s songs.”
Well, great? So he made it basically how it was supposed to be from the start after getting caught red-headed and making up some shitty excuses.
The thing that bothers me about all these cases is that basically it seems like they can pretty blatantly defraud somebody, get caught, and as long as they make the money right, there generally isn’t any repercussions. Like why would anybody stop doing this if they only cared about money (like most companies)? Sure, you take a reputational hit, but stans aren’t gonna stop listening to groups if they like them, so it’s almost a question of why wouldn’t they continue to try to cheat labor out of money? They’ve probably figured this out as well, which is why there’s constant stories about this.
