News article to help you understand why Rain lost the suit

* For your information, the late Jang Ja-yeon is an actress who commited suicide a few weeks ago due to the pressure of the evil practices of show business in Korea.

Credit: rain-cloud // RainingAllDay@soompi.com


Live "Rain" and dead "Jang Ja-yeon" look similar

Reported by Tak Hyun-min for Omynews
Translated into English by Jinjubi@Binamoo


On the death of the young actress, Jang Ja-yeon, sacrificed with the overall irrationality of the show business of Korea is even 'Rain' falling.

Who has said, 'Every flood has its ebb'? It seems that the entertainment industry which has been built up stupidly based on the weak ground and crazy with the intangible 'Hanryu' (Korean Wave) is collapsing all at once. As a man working in the field of show business, even though not in the main stream, and professor teaching about mass culture at the university, I can’t help thinking about where on earth the death of the new actress with an unfamiliar name and this shuddering crisis over the top star Rain were derived.

I've already mentioned twice that the actress's death was derived from the chronic problems existing among the entertainment agencies, the new actors or actresses, and the subjects of production. Also, I think that this suit of Rain and the failure of his concert tour in America planned in 2007 arose from these chronic evil practices of this field of show business, as well.

In 2007, as the most competitive content in Asia as well as in Korea, singer Rain set out to make a capture of world markets which he had always wanted to. But, unlike the successful concerts in Asia, the ones planned in the mainland of America, Hawaii and Canada, except for the Las Vegas concerts, failed, even without raising the curtain of the stage.

The failure of Rain's capturing the world markets; Why?

I already pointed out in newspapers and on TV at that time that Rain’s failure was due to the chronic evil practices of the performance industry and that the cause of the failure lied in the confusion of the responsibility for the concert and the rising production cost of it, which occurred while the singer and the agency he was attached to sold the copyright of the concerts, and the company which took it over sold it to the local production agency in turn.

StarM, the production company at that time, reported at the press conference that Rain's concerts had not been canceled, but just delayed, and that, if a few problems were settled, they would set out for the concerts in America again. Regretfully, however, the words have been broken. Not only were they kept, to make matters worse, but also rain and his prior agency, JYP Entertainment, lost the case related to the cancellation of the concert in Hawaii on March 19th. Rain got to suffer from the irremediable wound, with the damage of his character, and he was driven to pay all the cost of lawsuit hard to handle and a large punitive indemnity, as well.

It is reported that Rain asserted on the court that 'the contract of the concerts and the contents involved with the cancellation of them' had not been his responsibility and that he had not even known about them. Though the court didn’t accept that after all, I believe that his testimony was true. Unlike the system in the U.S. in which an entertainer hires a manager to decide the acceptance or rejection of all the contracts, the entertainers are attached to a certain agency and everything about them is decided by the estimation of it in Korean show business.

In Korea, of course, there are cases that the entertainer set up his/her own company and become his/her own boss, after rising to the top level and making fortune, and Rain actually set up his own company after 2007 in this way. But, it's still common that most of the entertainers work, attached to their agency, due to the burden of investment cost for themselves and the inaccessibility to the business system in which the agencies and the production companies determine everything.

The copyrights of the Rain's concerts taken over by successive subcontracts.

The U.S. court may never have been able to understand this part. What court on earth, except the Korean one, could believe that a singer was thoroughly excluded from the course of contracting his own concerts and he didn’t even know about the contracts and the cancellation of them? (Of course, he cannot have known 'nothing' of the concert indeed. The meaning of "nothing" he says is maybe that he couldn’t exercise any rights in entering into the contracts or cancelling them.)

Anyway, the U.S. court which adopts jury system could neither understand nor accept how the Asian top singer Rain who planned his own concert even in America could be excluded from his own business. Even the idea that he was concealing the truth could have occupied their mind. And it’s not difficult to imagine that it could have made a very important cause which resulted in the loss of the case.

It is an obvious fact, however, that Rain who belonged to JYP Entertainment at that time must not have had any rights to make contracts of the concerts and cancellation of them. It's true that he was the top artist of Asia, but, according to the customary practice in Korea, probably he couldn’t be involved in the whole process that JYP Entertainment sold the copyright of the concert tour to "StarM", and it sold to "Revolution Ent." again, and finally it sold to "Click Entertainment" in turn. That's because it is totally the shares of the executives of each company.

That's not different from the situation that the late Jang Ja-yeon had to be asked to join any TV dramas, Movies, or even unethical reception meetings, regardless of her own free will. Even though Rain was a star having 'risen' incomparably, he may not have had much he could do in the situation in which he was bound by the prior contract with his agency.

When the agency tries to make the most profit at the cost of the least responsibility, instead of being concerned about the quality of the concerts or the future of the actors/actresses, there’s nothing they can do about it. Needless to say, there’s no ground to discourage the agency from making the most profit using its own contents. But, if it pretends not to see that it's ruining the concerts of a singer and driving an actress to death, it is definitely a crime. In this sense, Rain and Jang Ja-yeon are obvious victims.

There were no reflections of the agencies having carried out Rain’s concerts.

Rain’s concerts planned through the subcontract and its successive subcontracts also resemble the background of the death of the late Jang Ja-yeon, rather than the substantial management and activities. As it has already been revealed, StarM raised the price of treasury stocks, by purchasing the copyright of the concerts from JYP Entertainment, and the benefit belonged to StarM completely.

Right after then, StarM sold the copyright directly to 'Revolution Entertainment' which didn’t have any experiences of producing concerts, and the company sold it to 'Click Entertainment' in turn. Maybe the companies were convinced that the concerts would be successful for all that, but in a sense, they might have come to the conclusion that they would be able to make money, even if the shows are ruined.

In the aspect that they tried to make fortune by arranging M&A using the entertainment business, instead of unprofitable one itself, the case of Jang Ja-yeon and the incident of Rain’s loss of the suit are not so much different. On this point of time that Rain is suffering from all the tremendous mental and material damages due to the lost case, JYP Entertainment, StarM and the Revolution Ent. which vanished entirely are still making neither statements about their responsibilities nor showing any regrets. These responses look very similar to those of the show business to the death of the actress.

Obviously there's a moral problem with the attitudes of the agenciesrepeating their own assertions that they have no responsibility for anything, without having no scruple about the circumstances of the actress and the singer. We should not forget that, regardless of the truth of the matters, the entertainers whose good images are fatal were already irreparably damaged to their honor, whether it is that of the dead or the living.

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I totally agree with this reporter.
Rain is just a victim .... indeed.