In addition to the controversy with Min Hee JinCEO of ADOR, now HYBE faces a new accusation of “chart manipulation” of BTS. This is because an old court case involving the subsidiary BIGHIT resurfaced in the media and alleged illegal practices on the part of the agency with the K-Pop group were investigated.
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In August 2017, a man titled as Mr. A was sentenced to one year in prison for joint extortion after threatening to release information about illegal marketing to the media unless he was paid. This caused him to extort 57 million won, around R$211,000. The court’s decision led to speculation that the BTS could have engaged in illegal marketing practices such as chart manipulation, which BIGHIT has always denied.
However, despite the agency’s denial, the court highlighted contrary findings. O Mr. A and his associates disguised themselves as third parties who had hacked emails to acquire data about illegal marketing conducted by the agency representing the company they worked for.
Later, the court also mentioned that the Mr. A lied about the fact that he was blackmailed with hacked marketing data regarding the BTSa client of the entertainment agency for which he provided services, and exploited this fabricated scenario to extract the money.
While recognizing that victims engaged in unconventional marketing practices that served as a pretext for blackmailthe court noted that the actual financial damage was limited to 42 million won, around R$155 thousand.
Thus, contrary to the agency’s claims, the court accepted the findings that the Mr. A had threatened to expose the manipulations of music charts and other acts related to the group. Furthermore, the court pointed out that BIGHIT’s own marketing practices contributed to the situation.
Therefore, HYBE announced new legal actions and BIGHIT spoke out:
“Recently, there have been several organized attempts to tarnish and defame BTS. We made our position clear in 2017 and we maintain this stance.”
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BTS has been accused of manipulating its results in the past
In fact, it is worth mentioning that numerous similar accusations have been made over the years. In 2021, after the success of “Butter” It is “Permission to Dance”O BTS was asked about the subject during an interview.
“It’s a fair question”he said RM about allegations that fan work amounts to graphics manipulation. “But if there’s a conversation within Billboard about what No. 1 should represent, then it’s up to them to change the rules and make streaming weigh more heavily in the rankings.”
“Bashing us or our fans for getting to number one with physical sales and downloads, I don’t know if that’s right… It seems like we’re easy targets because we’re a boy band, a K-pop act, and we have this huge fan loyalty.“.
Furthermore, in the interview, Shin Young-Jae — president of Big Hit Music (a subsidiary of HYBE) — was also asked whether the agency itself “organizes fans to manipulate the charts“.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if we actually had the ability to engineer such a thing?” he says. “I understand that there are market developments [relacionados ao BTS] that are upsetting to some people. But I don’t believe the US market can be easily overtaken by downloads alone. We think the impact of the songs has been demonstrated in many ways and we are proud of this achievement.”
