Shinhwa and their rights to "SHINHWA"


[note: these are information collected over the years through fan accounts, news snippets (cr malpabo), show appearances and basic knowledge of Korean law whatnot. don't treat this as 100% accurate as none of us had read the actual legal papers regarding the dispute. plus...it's a 10-year-old complicated matter XP]

As most of you know, Shinhwa originally debuted through SM Entertainment in 1998.

However, when their contracts ended in 2003, all 6 of them decided to leave the company as the renewal offers SMent had made were individual ones (they wanted to be signed on as "SHINHWA"), had discriminated among members (different remuneration, terms & conditions, etc) and had not even offered Dongwan one.

They then decided to sign with a new, much smaller company called Good Entertainment as "SHINHWA".

However, problems arise as SMent had not allowed them to perform their songs and use the name "SHINHWA". So in 2003, they filed a suit against SMent for the rights to their songs and their name.

Shinhwa lost the rights to ownership, but they did gain permission to perform their songs and use their names (royalties to be paid to the owner who holds the copyright - at the time, SMent). This was stipulated in a contract signed between SMent & Good Ent after the suit ended.

It was 2005, after the suit ended, that SMent registered the trademark "SHINHWA" under the company. They then proceeded to entrust the ownership of the trademark to Open World Ent/Jun Media and in 2006 transferred the ownership to OWE/Jun Media.

It is important to note that in order to give effect to the transfer, OWE/Jun Media had to register the transfer of ownership. This was not done until (years?) later, and had now become the crux of the legal issue at hand.

When Shinhwa wanted to establish Shinhwa Company in 2010/2011, they held various negotiations and meetings with all companies that had interests over "SHINHWA"/Shinhwa members, which included Liveworks Company, Topclass Entertainment, T.O.P Media as well as OWE/Jun Media.

Again, a form of agreement was signed between Shinhwa Company and these companies. In relation to OWE/Jun Media specifically, part of the terms was to permit Shinhwa Company the use of the "SHINHWA" trademark and for OWE/Jun Media to manage their overseas activities.

Somehow along the way (suspected to be around the end of 2012), Shinhwa found out about the belated (or non-) registration of the trademark and had written to Jun Media to provide proof to Shinhwa Company that they indeed own the "SHINHWA" trademark.

When Shinhwa Company received no reply, they had unilaterally rescinded the agreement and had ceased permitting Jun Media the rights to manage their overseas activities which included the management of The Legend, what was then Shinhwa's official fanclub in Japan.

[note: if some of you remember, Shinhwa Company had released a statement on the dissolution of The Legend and had told fanclub members not to pay the membership fee anymore which Jun Media had been collecting despite notice on the rescission of the contract. Shinhwa Company had treated this case as fraud]

In early 2013, Shinhwa Company filed a suit against Jun Media claiming for the royalty-monies collected by Jun Media; and Jun Media proceeded to counterfile a suit claiming for unpaid royalty-monies.

In June/July 2014, it was ruled by the court that despite the belated registration, the registration was effective and as such the name "SHINHWA" was and is still a trademark owned by Jun Media.

The court proceeded to rule partially against and for each party: Shinhwa was ordered to pay KRW327.55mil in royalty-monies from the 2013 SHINHWAXV/The Legend concerts, while Jun Media was ordered to pay KRW186.42mil in earnings from the 2012 The Return concerts and The Legend fanclub management to Shinhwa Company.

On 26 July 2014, Shinhwa Company released a statement stating that they intend to appeal the order made against them and that Shinhwa's planned 2015 activities will go on as planned.

[note:
In early 2013, Shinhwa filed a provisional patent attachment over the name "SHINHWA" (this in essence means they filed for the name "SHINHWA" to be temporarily owned by Shinhwa Company pending a full patent application - this would usually mean that Shinhwa Company had believed that the name "SHINHWA" is free from any trademark ownership by anyone).

However, Shinhwa Company in its statement on 26 July 2014, had stated that they knew the trademark belongs to Jun Media and is only contesting the extent to which the ownership belongs to Jun Media (aka to what extent Jun Media can claim over the name "SHINHWA" and thus impose royalties on its usage).

In this regard, it might be that the provisional patent attachment was filed for parts to which Shinhwa Company believes Jun Media's ownership does not extend to. Again, we don't have access to the legal papers so we can't really comment =/]

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