A Study on Legal Issues and Arbitration Appropriateness with Exclusive Contract of Entertainment Management

연예인 전속매니지먼트계약의 법적 쟁점과 중재적합성에 관한 연구

Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC), one of the Government agencies, has been preparing a standard model form of Exclusive Contract for Entertainment Management (hereinafter referred to as "Exclusive Contract") to eliminate some types of unfairness that placed entertainers at disadvantage such as forced PR activities or activities without payment, excessive privacy infringement, and exemption of payment after the termination of the exclusive contract. The said Exclusive Contract was drafted by The Korean Commercial Arbitration Board (the "KCAB") in association with the Korean Entertainment Law Society (the "KELS") and KCAB has persistently persuaded Corea Entertainment Management Association (the "CEMA"; mainly actors management) and Korea Entertainment Producers' Association (the "KEPA"; mainly singers management) to adopt the above-mentioned Exclusive Contract, respectively, and especially arbitration clause instead of litigation. After KCAB's tens of meetings and persuasion, they finally decided to accept KCAB's offer and they have submitted the Exclusive Contract drafted by KCAB and KELS to KFTC on April 17, 2009. The arbitration clause drafted by KCAB was already accepted by unfair contract examination division and unfair contract advisory committee and the final standard model contract was supposed to be publicly announced on June 30, 2009 after final examination of unfair contract standing committee, but the announcement has been delayed owing to severe controversies between the concerned parties, such as CEMA, KAU (Korea Artists' Union), KEPA and KSA (Korea Singers' Association) related to delicate issues like contract period and ownership of intellectual properties, etc. But it is expected the announcement will be made very soon by which the contract will include the originally drafted arbitration clause by KCAB. Therefore, it is very timely to examine the various legal issues which can be arisen out of disputes, and arbitration appropriateness with Exclusive Contract of Entertainment Management on this paper.