Unanswered Questions on SBS delved into the existence of ghost lyricists and ghost composers in its latest episode. When 45RPM Lee Hyun-bae died last month, his older brother revealed that LHB had written all the lyrics for 45RPM (famous HH group from early 2000s signed to YG)

Kim Chang-ryul never wrote any lyrics and Jung Jae-yong could not write one out of eight words. In KPOP, there is a person who does not create but instead stands in front of the creator and gains fame and profits from copyright.

In March an anon poster shared there is a songwriting academy that receives fees for lyrics but the academy does not pay the lyricists who participated in writing the song.

This Director (named Kim for the article) has a low participation rate in the songwriting process but takes the profits as if he were the main lyricist in numerous songs.

It is a common rule in the industry that if several people wrote lyrics to a song, the shares were apportioned from the total number of words or bars. Director Kim, known as the main lyricist for EXO, Red Velvet, and Kang Daniel songs, would supply demo songs to academy students

and the students would only get 20% commission if the lyrics were adopted. In other academies, the share is divided 7:3 or 6:4 but in this one, the Director would take half and then divide the remaining 8:2.

One informant shared that they wrote the lyrics to Dancing King by EXO and You Jae-seok as a project song for MBC’s Infinite Challenge but after Director Kim changed 30 of 800 characters, the lyricist was given only 2.5% share.

The informant checked with SM Ent and discovered that Kim’s stake was more than three times the stake of the informant who had written 95% of the lyrics. Director Kim could not remember which parts of the lyrics he had changed.

The informant “Song” said that a 2.5% stake for EXO’s song was worth over 2M won a month. Considering the profits from album sales, as well as copyrights from streaming, karaoke, YT, etc, the ghostwriter has earned at least tens of millions of won up to several hundred million.

Director Kim was found to have a close relationship with Choi, the head of A&R at SM Entertainment. Director Kim had exchanged messages with Choi saying that he could see the situation for establishing a ghost lyricist. Director Kim denies asking Choi for lyrics

Choi registered copyrights to many of his artists’ songs including EXO under his wife’s name. There are fifteen songs where this Director and Choi’s wife appear to have worked together. SM said that they recently learned of this and levied a heavy penalty.

This is not the first time that SM has been under such a suspicion. A person who worked on GG and Taeyeon songs a few years ago registered a copyright to the mother of an A&R employee for GG. SM said this person no longer works for the company.

This is happening in the world of composition too. A composer and guitarist shared that there are a dozen songs where he helped write a melody but head of the agency took credit. A college student participated in the writing of an OST but the professor took majority of credit

Victims worry about retaliation because the industry is so small.

https://n.news.naver.com/article/005/0001437495 • https://n.news.naver.com/entertain/article/609/0000438618 • https://n.news.naver.com/entertain/article/609/0000438593

It’s Yoo Jae-suk not You Jae-suk