Seven Seasons to sue LG over unauthorized use of Zico’s name

After Seven Seasons made their statement on LG‘s unauthorized use of Zico‘s name the other day, it was a bit unclear as to whether or not they were going to take legal action. Now though, according to The Fact, Seven Seasons will indeed be suing LG for damages.

An informant who wished to remain anonymous told , “At the moment, they are suing for definite compensation for damages and the agency’s legal team doing a review”. This can be construed as Seven Seasons having the determination to protect their artist’s publicity rights. According to this informant, after the legal review, Seven Seasons will take legal action against Beyond at the end of February, or next month at the latest.

LG’s makeup brand has only recently stopped advertising their product as ‘Block B Zico Lip Aqua Tinted Rogue’ after reportedly doing so for years. Furthermore, it’s said that Zico doesn’t even use the product they put his name on, which just makes the whole thing sorta odd.

To further support the case of Seven Seasons, there’s a recent precedent as a case seemingly identical to this one took place late last year with Suzy.

Last year on October 8, the Seoul Central District Court for civil case appeals ruled, “the publicity rights were violated’, and ruled for recommendation for compromise in the court of appeals for Suzy’s lawsuit for compensation for damages against internet shopping mall A. Both sides received this proposal of recommendation, and Suzy’s publicity rights were acknowledged and was compensated 10,000,000 KRW by company ‘A’.

From my armchair lawyer position, it seems rather impossible for Seven Seasons to fuck this up in terms of proving that LG violated his publicity rights, especially with an almost identical case happening just late last year. The only thing that seems undecided is how they’ll decide on the damages and compensation.

That said, the wild card factor is the reality that suing LG is different from suing some internet shopping mall.