A bill requiring entertainment companies to disclose their earnings settlement details to their celebrities at least once a year has passed the subcommittee of the National Assembly's Standing Committee.
The bill also prohibits agencies from forcing minor-aged celebrities to take excessive care of their appearance or making them work more than seven hours a day.
The National Assembly's Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee held a subcommittee on the review of the Culture and Arts Bill on the 20th and voted on a revision to the "Popular Culture and Arts Industry Development Act."
Like the so-called "singer Lee Seung-gi incident1," the agency was required to disclose remuneration-related information so that celebrities would not suffer damages from not being able to settle their activities due to opaque accounting by the agency.
When drafting a contract for popular culture and arts services, it was required to include detailed settlement methods and details of cost deductions, and when the Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism enacted or revised a standard contract for pop culture artists, the results of the contract-related fact-finding survey were reflected.
The amendment also strengthened the requirements for protecting the rights and interests of youth celebrities, such as lowering the upper limit of working hours.
The upper limit on working hours for youth entertainers, which was 35 hours a week under the age of 15 and 40 hours a week over the age of 15, will be reduced to 25 hours and 6 hours a day, 30 hours and 7 hours a week between the ages of 12 and 15, 35 hours a week and 7 hours a day, respectively.
In addition, violations of youth celebrities' right to learn, such as absence from school or dropping out, health and safety risks, forced excessive appearance management, assault, abuse, and sexual harassment are also prohibited.
In addition, pop culture and arts businesses were required to designate a youth protection manager to help guarantee the human rights of youth celebrities.
At the subcommittee, a revision to the Copyright Act was also approved to expand the types of works that can be reproduced, distributed, and transmitted for the visually impaired from linguistic works to all works, including videos.
The Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee will hold a plenary session on the 21st to vote on these bills.
1. Singer and actor, Lee Seung-gi debuted in 2004 at the age of 17 with his former company Hook Entertainment after 2 years of training. In late 2022 it was revealed that Lee had not not been properly settled for the last 18 years of his music revenue by his former agency since debut. After Lee filed a criminal lawsuit against Hook Entertainment's CEO, it was also revealed that the CEO and directors had embezzled some of Lee's advertising model fees and split a portion of it among themselves.
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