Who is really writing K-pop songs? Students among those not getting credit for their work, TV report alleges
- A South Korean TV series alleges that K-pop music executives are among those passing off the work of other people – including students – as their own
- Students in music programmes in universities have also reportedly had their work passed off by professors to entertainment companies
The K-pop song you’re listening to may not have been written by the person paid for writing it, a new report in South Korea alleges.
Saturday’s episode of Unanswered Questions, a television series airing on South Korean broadcaster SBS, investigated multiple issues surrounding K-pop songwriting and ghostwriting. The episode reported that some songwriters have benefited by passing off the work of other people – including students – as their own creative productions.
Unanswered Questions spoke with industry insiders who revealed that producers and A&R (artist and repertoire) executives – the primary figures behind songwriting and musical development at music companies – had been passing off music lyrics by others as their own, gaining copyright credits and money.
Songs coming out of the South Korean music world, most prominently idol-group-produced K-pop songs or ballads featured on K-drama soundtracks, can be immensely lucrative.
Songwriting royalties are often split by the amount of work a songwriter or lyricist has done. Here the work of some songwriters was being ignored or under-represented in the writing credits, resulting in less pay.
Young songwriters at songwriting academies, where students’ work is submitted to companies, were notable victims, reportedly not getting paid equitably for their work on some of K-pop’s biggest hits.
Even the producer at the centre of the show’s reporting has been allegedly credited as a lyricist on songs by the likes of EXO, NCT 127 and Kang Daniel.
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Students in music programmes in universities have also reportedly had their work passed off by professors to entertainment companies. Ghostwriters also spoke with the SBS show, sharing that they would be credited for less work than they had done on a song.
Another focus of the show was SM Entertainment executives listing family members as songwriters, allegedly without the company’s awareness, creating a revenue source from work they didn’t necessarily do.
The issue is allegedly widespread across the South Korean music industry, with ghostwriters speaking to Unanswered Questions about their work being submitted to companies and never being credited or paid for it.
The investigation by Unanswered Questions isn’t the first time that the K-pop scene has been flagged for not crediting songwriters properly, and is reflective of how SM Entertainment is just one of many corporations taking advantage of musical creators.
Last year, Grammy-award-winning songwriter Tiffany Red called out SM Entertainment on social media for poor compensation, and especially of taking advantage of black songwriters, an opinion which other songwriters echoed.
Red’s upset wasn’t just with SM, but the way music companies, in general, take advantage of those who produce the lucrative entertainment they benefit from.
She has since been campaigning for better pay in the music world for creatives across global music industries, creating a collective known as the “The 100 Percenters” to lobby for higher pay and recognition of those who craft music.
She’s not the only one upset about the way songwriters are treated, with their credits and royalties being diverted elsewhere: in March, a group of songwriters who have crafted some of the biggest music hits in recent years came together and launched The Pact, sharing an open letter on March 31 in which stated their mission to “not give publishing or songwriting credit to anyone who did not create or change the lyric or melody or otherwise contribute to the composition without a reasonably equivalent/meaningful exchange for all the writers on the song.”
