Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
The story around supposed attempts to poach FIFTY FIFTY from their label ATTRAKT has continued to develop slowly, but now ATTRAKT has announced in a statement that they will be suing The Givers (content creation group) CEO SIAHN for a litany of alleged wrongdoings.
ATTRAKT essentially claims SIAHN committed fraud, tried to sabotage things, and breached his contract.
On June 27, ATTRAKT released an official statement announcing that it had filed criminal charges against Ahn Sung Il, the CEO of creative content development group The Givers, as well as three other individuals. While no mention has been made of his current status at the agency, Ahn Sung Il was formerly described as the co-CEO of ATTRAKT (a position that is currently still listed on his LinkedIn profile at the time of publishing).
In its statement, ATTRAKT revealed that it had filed a criminal complaint at Gangnam Police Station against Ahn Sung Il and the three other individuals for fraud, breach of duty, and obstruction of business.
Explaining that The Givers had been working on and managing projects for ATTRAKT after signing a contract with the agency, ATTRAKT accused Ahn Sung Il of “committing acts of fraud and obstruction of business including delaying the handover of work, deleting company email accounts, and deleting material related to past projects.”
The most pertinent allegation is probably that SIAHN secretly purchased the copyright for “Cupid” (SIAHN produced the hit) without the company’s knowledge.
“Furthermore, in the process of purchasing the song ‘Cupid’ from a foreign songwriter*, The Givers did not provide ATTRAKT with information about the copyright purchase, and they secretly purchased the copyright in their or their company’s name without our knowledge,” continued the agency.
*They bought a sound/sample more than the whole thing, I believe.
Another thing surely related to this is ATTRAKT’s earlier statement issued on their official Twitter account, which was released after a poll was posted on the fancafe asking if they should shut down.
Hello, this is ATTRAKT.
— FIFTY FIFTY Official (@we_fiftyfifty) June 27, 2023
We would like to inform you about the attempted shutdown of the official FIFTY FIFTY fan café that occurred at around 3pm today. pic.twitter.com/4SlHDUciqx
Well, this got a lot messier than I ever anticipated.
ATTRAKT is now fighting against Warner Music Korea and The Givers, one of whom is also the producer of “Cupid” and owner of the song’s copyright. Yeesh.
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One thing has held true throughout this, though, which is that I’d like to know what FIFTY FIFTY themselves thinks of the situation. I understand their status as industry rookies, but their opinion likely matters most to fans, and the fact that all this mess is impacting them but they haven’t been allowed to speak on it is still a bit unnerving.
Just hope those four find a way out of this mess intact, because while the suits seem to think they’re fighting over a cash cow, they all seem intent on making sure that vision never comes to fruition by the time this mess is over.
