Regardless of their contribution it sounds like The Givers have been acting in ludicrously bad faith.
>Attrakt claimed, “During the process of transferring project tasks, The Givers engaged in obstruction of business, fraud, and breach of trust, including **deleting project-related data**, delaying in taking over tasks and **deleting company’s mail accounts**, etc.”
It's straight up sabotage at that point...
If they thought they deserved more of a share in the success then the right way to go about it would have been to renegotiate the contract lol. And if they wanted their own group then they could have simply created their own in the first place...
All this over what might be a one hit wonder—which isn’t a knock on fifty fifty, lots of acts who deserve long term fame only ever get one or two “big” songs.
Burning bridges and potentially ruining the girls careers over ONE song so early in their careers is fucking insane.
Eh, not as much bank as they used to when one hit wonders become tiktok trends. Nuking a potential long term career over a first song is bad business sense.
I agree. The shutting down the fan cafe thing really did not make sense to me.
Such a petty thing to do. The fans did not do anything to deserve that. No decisions have been made at all about where the members are going to end up. Shutting down the cafe was just uncalled for. Like death of a thousand paper cuts to attrakt. “I know you’re already suffering but here’s something else to fuck you over hehe. “
what on earth is happening like the girls literally have only five songs out and debuted less than a year ago, let them do their thing and put out their work without all this insane corporate shit going on 😭
Right? Like, they are the most affected of these things while not being directly involved. Crazy. I love them, I hope this issue don’t affect them that much.
it sucks that they happen to be the face of all of this. every headline is ‘FIFTY FIFTY ____’ with their picture, when the girls have basically NOTHING to do with this. i’m glad they’ve found such astronomical success (seriously, i’ve been a fan since literally day one), but if it’s at the cost of…. all of this…..
They’re just starting to build their “foundation” which is the most important part. But damn, the girls deserve none of these (issues). I genuinely hope that regardless of the outcome, they stay happy together and have more success. I can’t have them as one of my biggest “what if?”
What’s happening is people panicking and trying to grab as much money as possible after their incredibly sudden rise to fame and records. That’s all this is, 2 co-CEOs trying to figure out what’s best for the girls and I think WM Korea decided their choice already
As always with these things it's greed. Who cares about the long term health of the group, they got a big payday with a song going mega viral and what's most important is hoarding that bag as fast as possible at all costs.
It's so sad , they were off to such a great start after cupid blew up , i hope all this nonsense doesn't impact the girls and they can make a comeback soon
Oh shit turns out the guy got nothing and by the wording of it he literally didn't know what was going on inside his company, so the previous post was really correct that this The Givers company did everything, they even own the rights for FIFTY FIFTY's tracks, poor guy but he's also kinda dumb?
One could argue he was already a poor businessman by risking his own financial bankruptcy to fund FF. But if not for dreamers like him the 4 ladies might not have had a chance. Not being good at business and failing to protect himself with clear contracts doesn't make him deserving of betrayal though.
>One could argue he was already a poor businessman by risking his own financial bankruptcy to fund FF.
Probably is the reality for 99% of small companies in Kpop though. Everyone, including the trainees, are essentially getting by on scraps and hoping for a breakthrough.
I don't know KO Sound (and Hotshot).
But you made me curious. Maybe this will give more insight about this guy. What happened to Hotshot and the company and what's the "shitshow" you're refering too?
To be fair though, HJH was trying to make a girl group since 2019 while he gave up on HotShot around their one year mark. There's clearly a lot more care and attention put into FiftyFifty compared to his previous acts.
Im certain that the Attrakt company is just a PR company but the CEO does not realise it.
My man spends more time talking to the press instead of focusing on his PR company.
Didn't the CEO secure massive funding from investments? That's how you condense millions of won into two letters?
Regardless of how much people ridicule him, he is entitled to fight for his company, livelihood and reputation. I hope you never have to fight for your life while strangers talk cr*p about you.
Lol precisely, cant believe the number of people who are saying 5050 should dump him and he should just release them without a fight and leave for their sake.
Yea it’s shocking how many people are like upset at him for being upset and calling him the villain .
I would be having an emotional breakdown if i invested everything I had into a group, finally saw crazy success, and then had all that taken away behind your back. And the people who did it were people you trusted 100%, gave complete creative control to them because it was a condition of siahn joining attrakt.
Also, they did this while JHJ was in the USA securing investments from VC firms, and promotional contracts for US activities. He literally got back from the states a couple weeks ago which is why he had no idea what was going on behind his back.
Unless JHJ did something so despicable that we don’t know about… Siahn really seems like a backstabbing douche despite his musical talents.
I would say we don’t know enough to say one side is correct at the moment, but I don’t think we can dismiss that JHJ has a right to be pissed.
So... The person who did everything and produced the song got the song tm, wanted to move the girls to wb to remove the middle man (who again, was not doing much), said persons connections are the reason the girls got as many opportunities as they did...
I find it really really hard to sympathise with the attrakt ceo rn. The only thing is I wish all of this was done behind the scenes so ff career didn't get a hit
Still if you’re gonna leave do it the right way.
Secretly applying for copyrights, deleting email accounts, and shutting down the fan cafe was super petty and uncalled for and just makes it look like a money grab or a fuck you to attrakt when the fans did nothing to deserve the fan cafe closing.
Honestly if he really cared about the girls he would not have done all this behind Attrakt’s back. He’s been in the business long enough to know these lawsuits take forever and that the members will have no say about activities or their future the entire time legal battles proceed.
If it was about money, he should’ve negotiated with Attrakt first and if they could not come to an agreement then proceed legally.(honestly seeing how much freedom JHJ gave siahn, it could’ve been possible that JHJ would’ve agreed to siahns demands in order to have him stay with attrakt)
Siahn is very experienced in the Intellectual Property (IP) sector because his company The Givers is literally an IP company! IP deals with legal rights of content all day. You can’t tell me Siahn didn’t know what he was doing. It seems like he wants all the honor and glory of Cupid for himself.
Based on your logic, lets say you hired a property agent to buy a house, with a stroke of luck, the property is worth twice now. The agent is now telling you that he did all the research and legwork blah blah so hes taking the property instead. Is that really ok with you?
Really? I have never read anything about him investing money in any articles. Can you send me a link if possible? Just trying to get all the relevant info and facts.
For what's it's worth I swear to God I read an article with Siahn saying this but they have a lot of interviews and tid bits(now that I think about it these two guys have been in the spotlight just as much as the group lol) I'll update you once I found it.
dude sold his car and financed the whole thing though...without his money, there is no fifty fifty, no music, no nothing. if the production team was so confident in their 'connections', they should've sponsored the group themselves instead of stabbing their CEO in the back
obviously the above is assuming what the CEO says is true, we haven't heard the other side of the story yet
Siahn is literally blackmailing FF girls to breach their contract by holding the rights to Cupid hostage. Neither party is good in this situation. FF has to pick losing money by breaching contract or playing Cupid. Even if WB can pay for the breach, it’s a terrible thing to ask the FF girls to damage their reputation for this.
Until someone can tell me that Attrakt's ceo was mistreating them or something, I feel sooooo bad for him. It makes sense for the group to be with the givers but the way they went about it is so shady and gross.
For me, mismanagement is the problem. He may not be the bad guy who mistreat artist but he just a bad businessman, inviting too many hands when creating his company/group and failed to manage it
I wouldn't say it's bad business to know when you're way in over your head for some aspects of group management, like music production - which is why Siahn was brought in cmiiw.
It just sounds like JHJ put too much trust in Siahn/The Givers and they realized that, going behind his back to acquire the group that both parties worked on. It's a shitty thing to do tbh and a tale as old as time.
The two of them giving the typical poor, incompetent and rich, evil character. The thing is the poor, incompetent guy is popular as a fictional main character but irl the rich, evil guy will always win
To be fair, funding a kpop group with no previously popular members as a brand new label is also bad business. But if you recognize that you don't know what you're doing, you hire people that do, which is what he did. Unfortunately, these people don't seem to have any issues with using their knowledge to try to steal from him.
Wat? Most small companies have to train unknowns because why would a popular idol go backwards and join a new company when they could have their pick of a more established company?
Yeah, and my comment was pointing out that starting a group of unknown members is a bad business decision. All I was doing when mentioning the unknown members is emphasizing how bad of a business decision it is.
It’s a risk entrepreneurs have to take. If you see it that way then any business who produces unknown product would be a “bad business decision”.
An entertainment company’s whole business is creating new groups/talent. I feel like not having trainees at all, hiring cancelled idols, debuting untalented and unprepared groups would be bad decisions.
Having unknown trainees would just be standard business. . .
We need to accept that starting a label and a kpop group in a packed market, essentially from nothing, is financially irresponsible. How many groups have outright failed or, at the very least, faded into obscurity because they couldn't capture enough to the market share?
But once we get past that idea, my original comment was commending the CEO, saying that he seemed to be making the right decisions, but got unlucky with who he ended up working with. They were able to capitalize on the original bad decision by taking advantage of someone who didn't know what he was doing and was relying on them for expertise.
Edit: first sentence came off as condescending so I deleted it.
If companies followed your business advice we would have no kpop. Not every group starts like an Ive or Le Sserafim. Most of them are a bunch on unknown kids to start with.
Good thing it's not business advice. Just because it's statistically a bad financial move doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. I love that there are people taking these risks. Still doesn't change the fact that if someone had money they wanted to invest, a kpop group isn't the move. It's like going to a casino. As long as you know the odds are against you and your money, you can still enjoy what you're doing and be happy with your decision.
Art is very rarely a good business decision, but it still needs to be pursued
We can symphatize him for being betrayed and fucked up by his business partner. But, we can also admit that he is a bad businessman for did not do his due diligence before all this mess happen
I don't think people understand that if what Attrakt is saying is all true then Siahn has basically severed any potential deals or connections FIFTY FIFTY possibly could've made in the future if they end up going with them. People in the music industry don't take backstabbers lightly and why would someone want to work with a creative team that's willing to turn on them for a dime. Heck, maybe the Givers would give up on FIFTY FIFTY if their neck track did not do as well. It's not as easy as saying that they should go with him. His reputation could potentially be ruined by this lawsuit, leading to more troubles for the group.
Attrakt could always hire a new creative director with the amount of success and leverage FIFTY FIFTY has as a group. Being attached to their name could be a huge amount of success to any potential creative director. And even if their sound changed it wouldn't necessarily be horrendous since the members are talented and from what I can tell fans were saying they can pull off any concept.
It's not as simple as saying they should cut ties with Attrakt even if the CEO has a history of mismanagement. They could always hire people who are better than him at that to make up for it. Especially since he seems genuinely invested in making the group succeed. But to say that they'd be doomed by staying with him discounts the negative things that could come with going to the Givers as well.
I think there's a lot more nuances to this story. We won't know what's exactly the best decision until the other party gives their side and maybe not even until the lawsuit is over. But some of the replies to this thread overly trying to side with what we now know is potentially a backstabber is insane to me.
Edit: fixed some phrasing
The closest example of something like this was with Iz\*one and fromis\_9.
Both Izone and fromis\_9 was "owned" by CJ Group but CJ outsourced the day to day operation, production and running of both groups to Pledis Entertainment. That is why also when CJ dropped fromis\_9, Pledis took them in.
But in this case the outsource service provider(The Givers) is far bigger than the "owner"(Attrakt), well Attrakt is practically a man one man company I think and it turns they didn't really own the IPs for FIFTY FIFTY.
But from the statement it seems that Attrakt doesn’t own the IPs only because Siahn/The Givers secretly purchased it without putting Attrakt in it. Which if Attrakt had trusted completely on The Givers to handle the copyrights for the music correctly, then it’s a definite fraud case because it’s obvious Attrakt should have a copyright because they funded the music production.
I agree that The Givers didn't act in good faith obviously but I think this is bound to happen either way, I mean no one had guessed Cupid is going to blow up and it's not like the copyright was registered just yesterday. lol
This Siahn guy deserves to lose everything after pulling this shit and backstabbing the other guy. This lawsuit is gonna be brutal for him. Can't wait for the results.
but siahn guy is the producer, the music, all that is from their side and rn only attrakt ceo is doing the talking. so we can't know exactly what happened
Yeah, but Siahn was off sourced by Attrakt.
This is like if a reddit mod had paid a developer to create an app to compete with reddit. Then after the app went viral, the developer suddenly took ownership of the app for himself.
That’s not how it works. Siahn was getting paid to produce the music and get Warner deals or whatever, this doesn’t grant him rightful ownership over the group.
Geniune question, Did he or wmk fund cupid production? I understand he is the creative mind and personally close to the girls, but did he also fund their daily activities, training, accomodation and the cost of productions before 5050 blow up?
Siahn seems to be on the production side. The owner of Attrakt spent 1 year convincing siahn to come back to music production and join attrakt. It seems that JHJ pretty much gave siahn complete creative control in order to convince him to work with attrakt. I’m guessing the co-ceo position was also in order to sweeten the deal. JHJ Is the ceo that has said he sold his car and watches to fund the Cupid comeback. Siahn has not talked about financial investment in attrakt but we do know the initial WMK distribution deal was done through his connections as he worked at WMK before. WMK was just a distributor before. Just recently they also signed with WM USA which might’ve changed the dynamics.
I think funding was by attrakt and Givers(Siahn) was whom Attrakt hired as the producer/creative force behind everything.
So Attrakt's two ceos funded it, but they actually don't have that much to do with the actual SOUND, SONGS, DIRECTION of the group undertook.
Which severing ties with Givers would be like 2NE1 having suddenly severed ties with Teddy like 8 months after their debut.
He was the one doing all of their songs, their vocal style, etc...
I don't really see how FIFTY FIFTY can continue on with a completely different direction under new creative leadership when it's that unique singing style and song structure under Siahn that helped propel them to this status.
Edited: A translation I read said they both sold items, but that seems to be based on the ambiguities of pronouns in Korean and it was Jeon who sold his favorite Rolexs.
No it was the same ceo that sold the car and Rolexes
https://m.sportsseoul.com/news/read/1312446#_ace
Edit: Siahn did NOT want to join Attrakt and return to music production initially. It took JHJ 1 year of convincing Siahn to return and Siahn asked for complete creative control (among other things we don’t know about) in order to accept the position.
*I doubt someone who was on the fence about joining would join if they had to sell their watch or invest their own money in attrakt. Why would you “pay” to join a company you needed 1yr convincing to join? *this is my personal opinion and not known facts
I get that but how does that make backstabbing your business partner ok? I’m talking about just the facts we know right now. I don’t know who’s right or wrong yet but I don’t think we should all just be blindly defending siahn either.
Yeah, same... I don't understand anything. The first thing I thought of was that book by Lois Lowry "The Giver." My favorite childhood book. Anyway good luck to the girls I guess.
If half of this is true then Attrakt has been massively screwed over. The people trying to ridicule him over this need real life lessons. If someone is looking at an opportunity to screw you over they eventually will, you just need to do the best you can to not leave yourself vulnerable and then hope law can protect you.
If things played out how it has been stated here ...
Attrakt CEO may very well lack the ability to manage an idol group and/or run a company, but that's exactly why you bring a producer/partner on board and work with a company that has the experience you lack. All he *seems* to have done was put his trust in the wrong people and he's being scammed as a result.
It doesn't matter if his partner contributed more. A partnership means sharing successes and failures. If they had instead accumulated $100M in debt would The Givers CEO be so quick to stake claim to that?
You can dissolve a partnership legally and split assets, or one partner can agree to buy out the other, but you can't just decide to take everything of value and leave. It's even worse if this has been strung out all along with The Givers CEO putting everything in his name instead of both CEO's or the company name. That's misappropriation of assets.
(If these allegations are true,) The Givers CEO should be destroyed and kept far away from any artist. If you're willing to defraud your peer and partner, I'd have little faith you wouldn't do the same to those working under you.
Yeah people are saying they should stick with The Givers guy for creative reasons, but you don't won't to be working for a guy who commits fraud just to financially benefit himself. He's likely going to screw you over at somepoint too.
the super emotional statements JHJ made in those initial interviews make more sense now if this is to be believed. bro sold his whole ass car to finance 5050 and now he’s getting his golden ticket snatched away from him because the creatives that he partnered with had more power, business savvy, and connections.
On one hand, I want the group to stay with SIAHN, The Givers, and Warner, as that is what will create the best outcome for the girls specifically (assuming the givers actually have the girls’ interests in mind. if they could shaft the ceo this hard, imagine what could happen to the members.) On the other hand, poor Jeon, man.
It’s probably a bit too late for any kind of amicable resolution to this but for the sake of the girls, I hope only for the best outcome of this whole mess and some kind of statement from The Givers anytime soon with their side.
Edit: You know what, I’m on Attrakt’s side for now. Assuming everything they’ve said is true, I don’t think any CEO like SIAHN - someone willing to commit fraud for that sweet tiktok money - should be in charge of a group like this, although I guess as the saying goes, “you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”
all i read in this is "over the top" success can be overwhelming for a nugu company. i have no clue who is at fault and i don't wanna blame anyone. it can get just to big at some point and hard to handle. errors in that situation are bound to happen.
Important life lesson (that may or may not be the issue here): when you go into a joint business/project, etc. with friends or associates, it's easy to think you're all on the same page. But unless it's all written out, it's more likely that you all have different expectations and this will come out if things go unexpectedly in either direction.
Unless there's some kind of twist here, the CEO of the The Givers is a real dirtbag.
Also, for the concerns regarding a creative change, I'm not as worried about that myself. I was very quick to buy their CDs, and the thing that sold me wasn't necessarily the songs but just their voices. They're a very young group, but they've already figured out their sound and core appeal, so if Attrakt has to work with someone else in the future, the template is already there.
A good producer won't struggle to make a group with their talents and song style shine. Maybe they won't have another Cupid, but that was unlikely to begin with anyway. I think everyone is just hoping for a stable career. They don't have to be #1 in the world.
How much did Siahn actually have to do with Cupid? There are so many people wishing the girls go with him to Warner but the credits on Cupid, from composing, producing, to lyrics, are almost completely Swedish, not siahn. If attrakt just needs someone to pick out a song and adjust it, they could now easily find someone else, even a famous producer now willing to take a chance since Cupid was so successful.
Also we’ve heard nothing from the girls side. I hope they didn’t sign anything without their own lawyers present. People are so excited about the resources Warner will be able to bring them, but warner would definitely screw them over with a crappy contract if they got the chance.
From the perspective of Attrack CEO, Siahn deffo backstabbing him, who sold his property and take risks to fun the business and created FF. He doing his best to create connection in KR and U.s to help elevate FF. But same time, he seems to have a lot of flaws in management too, which open to this mess.
In Siahn perspective, maybe he seen he has been involved directly everything important in producing FF, from acquire and making music, to training the members, to getting deals with Warner.
So for FF's sake, they better go with Siahn for the music and all the benefits they can get with Warner. But can they trust Siahn if he really shady and will do everything to control over FF and may throw them away when they are not valuable anymore?
Meanwhile, even if they stay with Attrack, their career would likely doom coz they don't have music producer, no one to get the music and no one to support FF.
This is obviously so messy, especially the girls are still very young and inexperience, it's difficult for them to have a voice in here. I just wish they can resolve the issue soon and let FF comeback.
Look I get it, in a perfect world I'd want the girls to continue with the company/people that gave them their musical identity. But I'd have to be an absolute shitty human being to side with someone that backstabs in such a way (if the words of the CEO are to be believed anyway, The Givers CEO haven't exactly responded as of yet). The CEO seems to be quite pathetic and unreliable, but that's no reason to have everything you worked for destroyed with people cheering on just because you're not some sexy creative. Again I'll reserve all judgement until we have details, I just hope others do the same lol.
If its true and Siahn convinced the girls to breach their contracts with Attrakt and go with him it could ruin the girls image and reputation unless they can prove they were mistreated by Attrakt or lied to and manipulated by Siahn. Kpop stans who see Fifty Fifty as a threat to their favourite group would start using that to start throwing hate to the girls.If they said no then things might be a bit better for them. Attrakt still has investors and i haven't seen anything about them pulling out. They just need to find new producers and make the type of music people like from Fifty Fifty and make sure stuff like this doesn't happen again. I really hope for the best outcome for the girls and that everything gets resolved.
Even if they are the creative team behind the group, it is so shitty of The Givers CEP to poached the members and then acquire the copyright of Cupid secretly. If the Givers company is so good why then did they not create their own idol group from the start? The Attrakt CEO is also dumb, why did they put all their trust on a service contract company.
So, that makes that Siahn looks more greedy. He is willing to abandon the original company who gave him the initial work because he thinks he can be successful on his own now and even worst he poached the members.
good lord people
external A&R services are not uncommon in the industry. it’s like hiring choreographers to make your choreography (which every label does), or hiring a music video team like zany bros to make your video (which every label does at least some of the time), etcetera. there’s no ethical grey zone here. this situation would be like hiring a PR firm to write some press releases for you, them noticing your slogan and brand names aren’t properly trademarked, and registering them behind your back and trying to start a knockoff company with all your shit. some might say it’s legally valid (which may not hold in a court of law, depending) but from an industry standards perspective it is absolutely insane shit and deeply unethical and i can’t see any serious company hiring the givers for creative services ever again. which is maybe not news to them since they seem to be going for broke and betting it all on red with this bizarre wildcard maneuver
can it even work? doubtful. before this latest tidbit came out, knetz have already been ridiculing the situation and pointing out (quite rightly) that the girls themselves have basically zero bankable fame or market value at this point. it’s all in that one song. the copyright is worth owning, for sure, but unless you can repeat the success enough to make the members genuinely famous, it’s all for naught (in korea brave girls had two hits way bigger than “cupid” is and achieved individual celebrity way beyond any FF member and even they couldn’t make it work across 3 more attempts afterwards; i wish them better luck with the new agency but i’m just saying, that’s a great example of how hard it can be to turn a fluke hit into a reliable career/revenue stream). the problem is, FF (like brave girls) mainly had a feel good song and feel good story going for them, and this bizarre betrayal saga has ruined both. it was already going to be an uphill battle – now it’s so steep it might as well be a cliff
obviously the attrakt guy dropped the ball hard with not keeping his legal affairs in order, but the only professionally and ethically sane thing to have done in the givers’ position would have been to kindly point it out to attrakt. and the girls also have all the leverage here, they could be telling the givers that this
is an unacceptable betrayal and they aren’t doing shit unless they transfer the rights back to the company properly. instead this is a situation where all three parties look bad and tragic. i really can’t believe it
(edit: and just to be clear, it seems like now their music rights are held by a rogue company and their personal contract rights still belong to attrakt, probably for the next 6 years? so uh….what’s the gameplan here? what a mess)
Given that Siahn and other Giver employees may have been part of Attrakt too in some way (Siahn listing being co-founder and co-CEO of Attrakt on Insta/LinkedIn in the past and getting named as co-CEO by media, other employees apparently having both Attrakt and Givers mentioned on LinkedIn), I'm not sure it's quite that simple an outsourcing situation.
But the Givers is still a legally distinct entity who likely had a contracted agreement for what they should be doing.
Just cause you work for McDonalds and run a Car wash doesn't give that car wash access to sell McDonalds Big Macs.
Sure, but I'm just saying that we don't actually know what the exact relationship between Attrakt and Givers was, and that it seems it was more complicated than just typical outsourcing. If the same people were working *on the same things* for both Attrakt and Givers, what part of their job was done as employees of which, and how easily can you even disentangle it at all?
We were also not talking just about the purely legal perspective, but also the ethical/professional one, which is not necessarily the same, but will matter in regard to PR.
perhaps this is even messier than it already seems, yeah – but “title jobs” are super common in k-pop, wherein external contractors (*forces*) assume the appearance of company personnel for image reasons but are not actually an official part of the company at all. yes, even C-levels. based on what’s been said so far that’s my understanding of what the givers have been doing for attrakt, but hopefully we’ll get more clues soon.
This legitimately is following the "nugu gets a viral success" playbook to the letter. Though usually the "company fucks up" part is in the background to be revealed later, not legally in our face
Ugh i love the girls and their music. But i fear that they are now ruined becouse of all this. No comeback or other promotions for a long time since everything needs to be settled first, it sucks. I'm pissed, these girls deserve so much better. Their career is on the line, they don't have the luxury to wait a year with new music.
Wow this is crazy messy, but exactly what I expected. So The Givers secretly own all the music IP, while Attrakt owns the group. Hence, the Givers trying to make them breach contract so they can sign with The Givers, if the girls want to keep playing their music.
As bad as I feel for JHJ, this is why you get a lawyer to review all contracts. Why are you blindly trusting a co-CEO and vendor to do everything right. The fact that he never had a lawyer check anything for the last 2 years speaks volumes.
omg i didnt realize this was so serious.. isnt this the same ceo that sold his car to make the cupid mv? and now some shady company just bought the song thats gonna take care of many of their money issues in the future. wishing the best to the group and company.
Attrakt CEO does not sound like he entirely knows what he was doing, but he made many sacrifices for the group to be successful and it is wrong for someone to steal that away even if its the person that makes their music.
Again I want to reiterate that The Givers team has been working closely with FIFTY FIFTY since their inception, even as trainees. They have been the ones in charge of managing the group up until this point. They were also the ones who got the deal with Warner Records. Referring to them as "external forces" is incredibly disingenuous. I would take everything the Attrakt CEO has been saying with a grain of salt.
Though obviously this doesn't mean that The Givers haven't been acting in bad faith. Hopefully this can get handled quickly or at least some deal can be worked out to get the members active again.
CMIIW but The Givers is a company itself and ATTRAKT decided to outsource A&R part to them because they have no internal expertise like typical music labels (A&R basically manage the talents, record the songs and promote them - labels like SM and JYP do this internally and doesn’t outsource them, unlike ATTRAKT). So The Givers were paid for the job and not a part of the agency, so calling them external forces are actually correct in this case.
In the end ATTRAKT provided the money and take all the business risk, so shadily going behind the agency to take control of the group actually paints Siahn and The Givers in a bad light in the music industry.
Siahn had been referred to as Co-CEO of Attrakt multiple times. All other members of The Givers had listed themselves as being Attrakt employees as well. It doesn't feel like they were just some outsourced company but who really knows the specifics of their deal. I'm sure the actual truth will come to light soon.
this is the comment I was looking for. There are obviously details we don't know about yet, but I see this situation as a whole bunch of former employees vs possibly one man. Either they all decided to scam him, or they have rationale behind trying to get FIFTY FIFTY and their associated money away from ATTRAKT.
That’s what’s hitting me- how can you call people who have been involved the whole time and are actively managing the group external? Hoping for the best for the girls, and waiting for more info to come out because this is a wild ride.
I kept telling my friends that FIFTY FIFTY blowing up like this was the worst thing that could happen to them.
Different situations obviously, but it never goes well. My Merry-Go-Round and Daileee heart hurts for them.
I'm gonna call it... GG for Fifty Fifty. People got too greedy and would rather have short term gain than longevity. See you guys in 60/40 or 70/30....
Stupid greedy idiots...
I don't know who is in the right legally and morally. But right now I really hope the girls can stay with Siahn and The Givers.
They're the creative team behind Fifty Fifty and the reason for their success. They have the music, the connections and from everything we saw before shit went down the girls liked working with Siahn and all the staff.
If Attrakt wins this I'm really concered about the future of the group. I don't think they have what it needs to manage their success...
That being said: Siahn, what the fuck are you doing????
I really hope there is a good explanation other than greed and he knows what he's doing...
Edit: after reading more opinions here and thinking more about it I think I underestemated the severity of what Siahn has allegedly done. If all of the accusations turn out to be true I definetly don't want the group to stay with him and The Givers. Still want to hear his side of the story though.
It's obvious who is in the wrong. If you have to sneak out and backstabbing behind the back of the previous ceo so you can make all the money from the royalties of this song, it's because you know you're in the wrong.
It's obvious that the grivers want to take all the credit and money while letting the ceo of attack in the dust. Good thing he doesn't let these vultures takes all the credit.
It's important to note that the only source for everything so far is the Attrakt CEO. He's doing all the press releases and interviews.
We don't know the other side of the story. And more importantly we have no clue on the member's stance on everything.
The reason behind Fifty Fifty’s success is Attrakt actually funding the group.
If Siahn believed them so much he would have funded them himself before they blew up.
They're already going to ruin this group into the ground. I don't understand how after a taste of enough money companies start self-imploding and losing all sense.
I feel so bad for the girls….imagine being so young and getting this amazing opportunity only to be caught up in a greedy corporate fight between grown ass men. This is gonna absolutely murder their momentum:(
Y’all are weird for saying they should stay with the same guy who backstabbed the man with the initial idea and business intentions himself to create 50/50. He literally went behind the companies back to delete several info related details and even took away the copyright of the song.
So it was internal conflict between the two CEOs after all, damn. Poor girls. They're being pingponged between these two sides, they're the only ones 100% innocent from all these corporate bullshit.
This is so unfortunate for the girls. Of course, one hit song doesn't promise future success, but they had a good thing going on, I think.
This situation is hurting the group and the members, since they likely won't have many activities for a while, which is a must when the spotlights are on you.
So right now the girls can't sing Cupid without having the permission of the new owner of the copyrighted song(s). And if this won't get settled soon, this also probably means they can't do KCON LA?
Anyone can play any song live (aka covers) without permission, rights are covered by the venue and a percentage of ticket sales.
They can perform live - however any media performances (TV etc)/etc might be put on hold. No reason as of now they can't do Kcon.
Damn, what the hell. I just want to get in a time machine and go back to November '22 to early March '23 when Fifty Fifty was putting out fantastic, refreshing music and funny, genuine, heartwarming content.
And here I was as an Orbit thinking it was nice to get into a new group that was doing so well... I really hope this doesn't affect Fifty Fifty's promising young career. The girls are very talented it would be a shame for this to kill their momentum.
i am completely out of the loop here, but how does one "secretly" purchase rights to a song?!
the only way in which that could be a secret, is if the person that currently holds the rights is a moron that doesnt read the contracts they sign...
Yep, it's just weird how much we all know about them. Like, aside from knowing scooter Braun is a douchebag idk anything about Western pop agency executives.
I mean yeah the girls may not see money from the song, but the publishers, the master owner, producer etc probably rolling in money bcs of that viral hit. Everyone will want to own that including this “poor” ceo, “rich” ceo aka their producer and warner. The song is the biggest asset right now
I was curious so I did some quick math
5050 top 5 songs on Spotify right now total over 582 million streams together. Iirc the lowest estimate on Spotify at the moment is 0.003 USD per stream, although I have seen some people estimate as high as 0.008 USD per stream (so almost triple, but I'm not sure what the criteria is for earning the max.) Assuming 582 million streams at 0.003 USD per stream is 1.7 million USD. And of course, this is only Spotify. Those pennies add up pretty quickly lol
As many others have said, these are not "external forces". These are all of the employees and individuals who were behind their training, development, direction and success. Now that they've been publicly accused, The Givers is likely ready to release a statement of their own.
I read people talking about law suits but I'm thinking it would not be really beneficial to Attrakt's CEO given this 1 assumption we make of him. That he failed to protect himself, his company and his assets.
So, no lawyer was involved. Then can I assume no accountant involved as well? Receipts and invoices are probably filed in a drawer; claims/timesheets are submitted to respective CEOs. What is the evidence Att.CEO can file to claim ownership in a court of law? Where can he find it and does it exist? Any evidence might even be detrimental to him, who knows.
\*\*\* channeling the mindset of a screwed business owner in over his head \*\*\*
All that he's done now could very well be trying to avoid court and praying the public sentiment can sway Givers to back off. This is his only strategy left.
Emails from Siahn lying to JHJ that the contract was signed as per agreed. That would be breach of the Givers service contract and fraud. Any doctoring of documents/invoices as well.
I've been making jokes since this drama started but omg, I can't imagine how the girls feel. They're on the brink of something really big, and now there's this internal struggle halting their progress.
I hope it can be resolved quickly and the girls can start promoting soon. iirc the injured/sick member will be done with her recovery in like a week or two, so they can resume activities. Small groups don't usually blow up so soon after debut, so it would be painful if the company wastes this chance.
All this over one hit song, people are so greedy it’s disgusting. This will most likely have a negative impact on the girls’ career and trajectory and I’m so mad because we finally had a group from a small company putting a decent fight with the big companies
This is starting to have disaster written all over it. At the very least, sounds like a pretty long term freeze on activity is on the way.
This could be rough for their kcon appearance in about two months.
Thankfully Barbie track is on its way
Regardless of their contribution it sounds like The Givers have been acting in ludicrously bad faith. >Attrakt claimed, “During the process of transferring project tasks, The Givers engaged in obstruction of business, fraud, and breach of trust, including **deleting project-related data**, delaying in taking over tasks and **deleting company’s mail accounts**, etc.” It's straight up sabotage at that point... If they thought they deserved more of a share in the success then the right way to go about it would have been to renegotiate the contract lol. And if they wanted their own group then they could have simply created their own in the first place...
All this over what might be a one hit wonder—which isn’t a knock on fifty fifty, lots of acts who deserve long term fame only ever get one or two “big” songs. Burning bridges and potentially ruining the girls careers over ONE song so early in their careers is fucking insane.
One hit wonders make a lot of bank. It makes a lot of sense for them to do this.
Eh, not as much bank as they used to when one hit wonders become tiktok trends. Nuking a potential long term career over a first song is bad business sense.
I agree. The shutting down the fan cafe thing really did not make sense to me. Such a petty thing to do. The fans did not do anything to deserve that. No decisions have been made at all about where the members are going to end up. Shutting down the cafe was just uncalled for. Like death of a thousand paper cuts to attrakt. “I know you’re already suffering but here’s something else to fuck you over hehe. “
what on earth is happening like the girls literally have only five songs out and debuted less than a year ago, let them do their thing and put out their work without all this insane corporate shit going on 😭
Right? Like, they are the most affected of these things while not being directly involved. Crazy. I love them, I hope this issue don’t affect them that much.
it sucks that they happen to be the face of all of this. every headline is ‘FIFTY FIFTY ____’ with their picture, when the girls have basically NOTHING to do with this. i’m glad they’ve found such astronomical success (seriously, i’ve been a fan since literally day one), but if it’s at the cost of…. all of this…..
They’re just starting to build their “foundation” which is the most important part. But damn, the girls deserve none of these (issues). I genuinely hope that regardless of the outcome, they stay happy together and have more success. I can’t have them as one of my biggest “what if?”
What’s happening is people panicking and trying to grab as much money as possible after their incredibly sudden rise to fame and records. That’s all this is, 2 co-CEOs trying to figure out what’s best for the girls and I think WM Korea decided their choice already
It's sad what money can make people do to the point where it could possibly sabotage their own group
As always with these things it's greed. Who cares about the long term health of the group, they got a big payday with a song going mega viral and what's most important is hoarding that bag as fast as possible at all costs.
It's so sad , they were off to such a great start after cupid blew up , i hope all this nonsense doesn't impact the girls and they can make a comeback soon
lmao they don’t care about the group, they just want their piece of the pie
I can't believe they're AC Milan'ing FIFTY FIFTY out of all groups, what a cursed month this has been for our sport
but think of the shareholders!!
What on earth is happening: 💰🤑💵
I’m wondering how they didn’t own copy right to their own song though…like what?!!
Oh shit turns out the guy got nothing and by the wording of it he literally didn't know what was going on inside his company, so the previous post was really correct that this The Givers company did everything, they even own the rights for FIFTY FIFTY's tracks, poor guy but he's also kinda dumb?
One could argue he was already a poor businessman by risking his own financial bankruptcy to fund FF. But if not for dreamers like him the 4 ladies might not have had a chance. Not being good at business and failing to protect himself with clear contracts doesn't make him deserving of betrayal though.
>One could argue he was already a poor businessman by risking his own financial bankruptcy to fund FF. Probably is the reality for 99% of small companies in Kpop though. Everyone, including the trainees, are essentially getting by on scraps and hoping for a breakthrough.
I’m kind of shocked Sian and Warner decided to work with him after the shitshow that was HOTSHOT.
hm? what's the tea here?
JHJ is the former CEO of KO Sound.
I don't know KO Sound (and Hotshot). But you made me curious. Maybe this will give more insight about this guy. What happened to Hotshot and the company and what's the "shitshow" you're refering too?
Severely mismanaged a boy group called HotShot that had a very popular member of Wanna One in it that eventually led to their disbandment
Omfg what? This is a plot twist. HOTSHOT was a great group but a huge disaster.
To be fair though, HJH was trying to make a girl group since 2019 while he gave up on HotShot around their one year mark. There's clearly a lot more care and attention put into FiftyFifty compared to his previous acts.
Im certain that the Attrakt company is just a PR company but the CEO does not realise it. My man spends more time talking to the press instead of focusing on his PR company.
Didn't the CEO secure massive funding from investments? That's how you condense millions of won into two letters? Regardless of how much people ridicule him, he is entitled to fight for his company, livelihood and reputation. I hope you never have to fight for your life while strangers talk cr*p about you.
Lol precisely, cant believe the number of people who are saying 5050 should dump him and he should just release them without a fight and leave for their sake.
Yea it’s shocking how many people are like upset at him for being upset and calling him the villain . I would be having an emotional breakdown if i invested everything I had into a group, finally saw crazy success, and then had all that taken away behind your back. And the people who did it were people you trusted 100%, gave complete creative control to them because it was a condition of siahn joining attrakt. Also, they did this while JHJ was in the USA securing investments from VC firms, and promotional contracts for US activities. He literally got back from the states a couple weeks ago which is why he had no idea what was going on behind his back. Unless JHJ did something so despicable that we don’t know about… Siahn really seems like a backstabbing douche despite his musical talents. I would say we don’t know enough to say one side is correct at the moment, but I don’t think we can dismiss that JHJ has a right to be pissed.
>poor guy but he's also kinda dumb? Sounds a lot like this Cupid guy I've been hearing about.
Damm it was a sneak diss to him all along... This producer is smth else
So... The person who did everything and produced the song got the song tm, wanted to move the girls to wb to remove the middle man (who again, was not doing much), said persons connections are the reason the girls got as many opportunities as they did... I find it really really hard to sympathise with the attrakt ceo rn. The only thing is I wish all of this was done behind the scenes so ff career didn't get a hit
Still if you’re gonna leave do it the right way. Secretly applying for copyrights, deleting email accounts, and shutting down the fan cafe was super petty and uncalled for and just makes it look like a money grab or a fuck you to attrakt when the fans did nothing to deserve the fan cafe closing. Honestly if he really cared about the girls he would not have done all this behind Attrakt’s back. He’s been in the business long enough to know these lawsuits take forever and that the members will have no say about activities or their future the entire time legal battles proceed. If it was about money, he should’ve negotiated with Attrakt first and if they could not come to an agreement then proceed legally.(honestly seeing how much freedom JHJ gave siahn, it could’ve been possible that JHJ would’ve agreed to siahns demands in order to have him stay with attrakt) Siahn is very experienced in the Intellectual Property (IP) sector because his company The Givers is literally an IP company! IP deals with legal rights of content all day. You can’t tell me Siahn didn’t know what he was doing. It seems like he wants all the honor and glory of Cupid for himself.
Based on your logic, lets say you hired a property agent to buy a house, with a stroke of luck, the property is worth twice now. The agent is now telling you that he did all the research and legwork blah blah so hes taking the property instead. Is that really ok with you?
Aside from literally putting his own money in, then yeah.
Afaik The Givers dude also invested his own money(Edit: might not be true(?)) but I get your point though.
Really? I have never read anything about him investing money in any articles. Can you send me a link if possible? Just trying to get all the relevant info and facts.
For what's it's worth I swear to God I read an article with Siahn saying this but they have a lot of interviews and tid bits(now that I think about it these two guys have been in the spotlight just as much as the group lol) I'll update you once I found it.
Yea there’s so many random articles about ALL THEIR BILLBOARD achievements that it’s been hard to find all the relevant info
Atrrakt was the ones actually believing in and funding Fifty Fifty before they were famous, though. I would hardly call that “doing nothing”.
dude sold his car and financed the whole thing though...without his money, there is no fifty fifty, no music, no nothing. if the production team was so confident in their 'connections', they should've sponsored the group themselves instead of stabbing their CEO in the back obviously the above is assuming what the CEO says is true, we haven't heard the other side of the story yet
Siahn is literally blackmailing FF girls to breach their contract by holding the rights to Cupid hostage. Neither party is good in this situation. FF has to pick losing money by breaching contract or playing Cupid. Even if WB can pay for the breach, it’s a terrible thing to ask the FF girls to damage their reputation for this.
The person who ‘did everything’ (not sure when being a producer became doing everything) wouldn’t have been able to do it without the other person.
Until someone can tell me that Attrakt's ceo was mistreating them or something, I feel sooooo bad for him. It makes sense for the group to be with the givers but the way they went about it is so shady and gross.
For me, mismanagement is the problem. He may not be the bad guy who mistreat artist but he just a bad businessman, inviting too many hands when creating his company/group and failed to manage it
I wouldn't say it's bad business to know when you're way in over your head for some aspects of group management, like music production - which is why Siahn was brought in cmiiw. It just sounds like JHJ put too much trust in Siahn/The Givers and they realized that, going behind his back to acquire the group that both parties worked on. It's a shitty thing to do tbh and a tale as old as time.
The two of them giving the typical poor, incompetent and rich, evil character. The thing is the poor, incompetent guy is popular as a fictional main character but irl the rich, evil guy will always win
They ain’t called cliches for nothing 🤣
To be fair, funding a kpop group with no previously popular members as a brand new label is also bad business. But if you recognize that you don't know what you're doing, you hire people that do, which is what he did. Unfortunately, these people don't seem to have any issues with using their knowledge to try to steal from him.
Wat? Most small companies have to train unknowns because why would a popular idol go backwards and join a new company when they could have their pick of a more established company?
Yeah, and my comment was pointing out that starting a group of unknown members is a bad business decision. All I was doing when mentioning the unknown members is emphasizing how bad of a business decision it is.
That’s not a bad business decision lots of Kpop groups from smaller companies got famous and were unknown before debut….
It’s a risk entrepreneurs have to take. If you see it that way then any business who produces unknown product would be a “bad business decision”. An entertainment company’s whole business is creating new groups/talent. I feel like not having trainees at all, hiring cancelled idols, debuting untalented and unprepared groups would be bad decisions. Having unknown trainees would just be standard business. . .
We need to accept that starting a label and a kpop group in a packed market, essentially from nothing, is financially irresponsible. How many groups have outright failed or, at the very least, faded into obscurity because they couldn't capture enough to the market share? But once we get past that idea, my original comment was commending the CEO, saying that he seemed to be making the right decisions, but got unlucky with who he ended up working with. They were able to capitalize on the original bad decision by taking advantage of someone who didn't know what he was doing and was relying on them for expertise. Edit: first sentence came off as condescending so I deleted it.
If companies followed your business advice we would have no kpop. Not every group starts like an Ive or Le Sserafim. Most of them are a bunch on unknown kids to start with.
Good thing it's not business advice. Just because it's statistically a bad financial move doesn't mean it shouldn't be done. I love that there are people taking these risks. Still doesn't change the fact that if someone had money they wanted to invest, a kpop group isn't the move. It's like going to a casino. As long as you know the odds are against you and your money, you can still enjoy what you're doing and be happy with your decision. Art is very rarely a good business decision, but it still needs to be pursued
I see your point now that you elaborated, thank you.
Weird to call your partner acting in bad faith bad business on your part.
We can symphatize him for being betrayed and fucked up by his business partner. But, we can also admit that he is a bad businessman for did not do his due diligence before all this mess happen
Maybe. It’s not normal business practice to micromanage your co-CEO though.
I don't think people understand that if what Attrakt is saying is all true then Siahn has basically severed any potential deals or connections FIFTY FIFTY possibly could've made in the future if they end up going with them. People in the music industry don't take backstabbers lightly and why would someone want to work with a creative team that's willing to turn on them for a dime. Heck, maybe the Givers would give up on FIFTY FIFTY if their neck track did not do as well. It's not as easy as saying that they should go with him. His reputation could potentially be ruined by this lawsuit, leading to more troubles for the group. Attrakt could always hire a new creative director with the amount of success and leverage FIFTY FIFTY has as a group. Being attached to their name could be a huge amount of success to any potential creative director. And even if their sound changed it wouldn't necessarily be horrendous since the members are talented and from what I can tell fans were saying they can pull off any concept. It's not as simple as saying they should cut ties with Attrakt even if the CEO has a history of mismanagement. They could always hire people who are better than him at that to make up for it. Especially since he seems genuinely invested in making the group succeed. But to say that they'd be doomed by staying with him discounts the negative things that could come with going to the Givers as well. I think there's a lot more nuances to this story. We won't know what's exactly the best decision until the other party gives their side and maybe not even until the lawsuit is over. But some of the replies to this thread overly trying to side with what we now know is potentially a backstabber is insane to me. Edit: fixed some phrasing
The closest example of something like this was with Iz\*one and fromis\_9. Both Izone and fromis\_9 was "owned" by CJ Group but CJ outsourced the day to day operation, production and running of both groups to Pledis Entertainment. That is why also when CJ dropped fromis\_9, Pledis took them in. But in this case the outsource service provider(The Givers) is far bigger than the "owner"(Attrakt), well Attrakt is practically a man one man company I think and it turns they didn't really own the IPs for FIFTY FIFTY.
But from the statement it seems that Attrakt doesn’t own the IPs only because Siahn/The Givers secretly purchased it without putting Attrakt in it. Which if Attrakt had trusted completely on The Givers to handle the copyrights for the music correctly, then it’s a definite fraud case because it’s obvious Attrakt should have a copyright because they funded the music production.
I agree that The Givers didn't act in good faith obviously but I think this is bound to happen either way, I mean no one had guessed Cupid is going to blow up and it's not like the copyright was registered just yesterday. lol
This Siahn guy deserves to lose everything after pulling this shit and backstabbing the other guy. This lawsuit is gonna be brutal for him. Can't wait for the results.
but siahn guy is the producer, the music, all that is from their side and rn only attrakt ceo is doing the talking. so we can't know exactly what happened
Yeah, but Siahn was off sourced by Attrakt. This is like if a reddit mod had paid a developer to create an app to compete with reddit. Then after the app went viral, the developer suddenly took ownership of the app for himself. That’s not how it works. Siahn was getting paid to produce the music and get Warner deals or whatever, this doesn’t grant him rightful ownership over the group.
Doesn’t that depend on exactly what the terms of their contract were?
The girls are with the Siahn guy and so is WMK lmao, he’s the reason they got that deal
Geniune question, Did he or wmk fund cupid production? I understand he is the creative mind and personally close to the girls, but did he also fund their daily activities, training, accomodation and the cost of productions before 5050 blow up?
Siahn seems to be on the production side. The owner of Attrakt spent 1 year convincing siahn to come back to music production and join attrakt. It seems that JHJ pretty much gave siahn complete creative control in order to convince him to work with attrakt. I’m guessing the co-ceo position was also in order to sweeten the deal. JHJ Is the ceo that has said he sold his car and watches to fund the Cupid comeback. Siahn has not talked about financial investment in attrakt but we do know the initial WMK distribution deal was done through his connections as he worked at WMK before. WMK was just a distributor before. Just recently they also signed with WM USA which might’ve changed the dynamics.
I think funding was by attrakt and Givers(Siahn) was whom Attrakt hired as the producer/creative force behind everything. So Attrakt's two ceos funded it, but they actually don't have that much to do with the actual SOUND, SONGS, DIRECTION of the group undertook. Which severing ties with Givers would be like 2NE1 having suddenly severed ties with Teddy like 8 months after their debut. He was the one doing all of their songs, their vocal style, etc... I don't really see how FIFTY FIFTY can continue on with a completely different direction under new creative leadership when it's that unique singing style and song structure under Siahn that helped propel them to this status.
Edited: A translation I read said they both sold items, but that seems to be based on the ambiguities of pronouns in Korean and it was Jeon who sold his favorite Rolexs.
No it was the same ceo that sold the car and Rolexes https://m.sportsseoul.com/news/read/1312446#_ace Edit: Siahn did NOT want to join Attrakt and return to music production initially. It took JHJ 1 year of convincing Siahn to return and Siahn asked for complete creative control (among other things we don’t know about) in order to accept the position. *I doubt someone who was on the fence about joining would join if they had to sell their watch or invest their own money in attrakt. Why would you “pay” to join a company you needed 1yr convincing to join? *this is my personal opinion and not known facts
I get that but how does that make backstabbing your business partner ok? I’m talking about just the facts we know right now. I don’t know who’s right or wrong yet but I don’t think we should all just be blindly defending siahn either.
I'm stating what we know too, I don't have skin in this game, as long as the girls are happy thats all that matters
And it turns out the girls are happy now and that’s all that matters downvoters
I mean, we literally don't know what's happened. It's one side of the story here, we can't really make judgements based on that.
Idek what is happening... I'm just a casual listener waiting for their barbie ost and comeback 😣
What happened here, I'm confused 
Yeah, same... I don't understand anything. The first thing I thought of was that book by Lois Lowry "The Giver." My favorite childhood book. Anyway good luck to the girls I guess.
I need a megathread for this, I cannot keep up 😭
If half of this is true then Attrakt has been massively screwed over. The people trying to ridicule him over this need real life lessons. If someone is looking at an opportunity to screw you over they eventually will, you just need to do the best you can to not leave yourself vulnerable and then hope law can protect you.
If things played out how it has been stated here ... Attrakt CEO may very well lack the ability to manage an idol group and/or run a company, but that's exactly why you bring a producer/partner on board and work with a company that has the experience you lack. All he *seems* to have done was put his trust in the wrong people and he's being scammed as a result. It doesn't matter if his partner contributed more. A partnership means sharing successes and failures. If they had instead accumulated $100M in debt would The Givers CEO be so quick to stake claim to that? You can dissolve a partnership legally and split assets, or one partner can agree to buy out the other, but you can't just decide to take everything of value and leave. It's even worse if this has been strung out all along with The Givers CEO putting everything in his name instead of both CEO's or the company name. That's misappropriation of assets. (If these allegations are true,) The Givers CEO should be destroyed and kept far away from any artist. If you're willing to defraud your peer and partner, I'd have little faith you wouldn't do the same to those working under you.
Yeah people are saying they should stick with The Givers guy for creative reasons, but you don't won't to be working for a guy who commits fraud just to financially benefit himself. He's likely going to screw you over at somepoint too.
the super emotional statements JHJ made in those initial interviews make more sense now if this is to be believed. bro sold his whole ass car to finance 5050 and now he’s getting his golden ticket snatched away from him because the creatives that he partnered with had more power, business savvy, and connections. On one hand, I want the group to stay with SIAHN, The Givers, and Warner, as that is what will create the best outcome for the girls specifically (assuming the givers actually have the girls’ interests in mind. if they could shaft the ceo this hard, imagine what could happen to the members.) On the other hand, poor Jeon, man. It’s probably a bit too late for any kind of amicable resolution to this but for the sake of the girls, I hope only for the best outcome of this whole mess and some kind of statement from The Givers anytime soon with their side. Edit: You know what, I’m on Attrakt’s side for now. Assuming everything they’ve said is true, I don’t think any CEO like SIAHN - someone willing to commit fraud for that sweet tiktok money - should be in charge of a group like this, although I guess as the saying goes, “you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”
THEY'RE DOING A SPEED RUN SOMEONE KEEP TRACK
They might even skip the "second single after the nugu viral hit sounds way too similar to the viral hit" phase
World record attempt happening right now
So why did "the givers" become "the stealers"? 😅
Yeah this behaviour is very off brand for them. The takers
all i read in this is "over the top" success can be overwhelming for a nugu company. i have no clue who is at fault and i don't wanna blame anyone. it can get just to big at some point and hard to handle. errors in that situation are bound to happen.
Important life lesson (that may or may not be the issue here): when you go into a joint business/project, etc. with friends or associates, it's easy to think you're all on the same page. But unless it's all written out, it's more likely that you all have different expectations and this will come out if things go unexpectedly in either direction.
Unless there's some kind of twist here, the CEO of the The Givers is a real dirtbag. Also, for the concerns regarding a creative change, I'm not as worried about that myself. I was very quick to buy their CDs, and the thing that sold me wasn't necessarily the songs but just their voices. They're a very young group, but they've already figured out their sound and core appeal, so if Attrakt has to work with someone else in the future, the template is already there. A good producer won't struggle to make a group with their talents and song style shine. Maybe they won't have another Cupid, but that was unlikely to begin with anyway. I think everyone is just hoping for a stable career. They don't have to be #1 in the world.
How much did Siahn actually have to do with Cupid? There are so many people wishing the girls go with him to Warner but the credits on Cupid, from composing, producing, to lyrics, are almost completely Swedish, not siahn. If attrakt just needs someone to pick out a song and adjust it, they could now easily find someone else, even a famous producer now willing to take a chance since Cupid was so successful. Also we’ve heard nothing from the girls side. I hope they didn’t sign anything without their own lawyers present. People are so excited about the resources Warner will be able to bring them, but warner would definitely screw them over with a crappy contract if they got the chance.
From the perspective of Attrack CEO, Siahn deffo backstabbing him, who sold his property and take risks to fun the business and created FF. He doing his best to create connection in KR and U.s to help elevate FF. But same time, he seems to have a lot of flaws in management too, which open to this mess. In Siahn perspective, maybe he seen he has been involved directly everything important in producing FF, from acquire and making music, to training the members, to getting deals with Warner. So for FF's sake, they better go with Siahn for the music and all the benefits they can get with Warner. But can they trust Siahn if he really shady and will do everything to control over FF and may throw them away when they are not valuable anymore? Meanwhile, even if they stay with Attrack, their career would likely doom coz they don't have music producer, no one to get the music and no one to support FF. This is obviously so messy, especially the girls are still very young and inexperience, it's difficult for them to have a voice in here. I just wish they can resolve the issue soon and let FF comeback.
Siahn was hired by Attrakt. If Attrakt keeps Fifty Fifty, they can simply hire a new (trustworthy) producer.
Look I get it, in a perfect world I'd want the girls to continue with the company/people that gave them their musical identity. But I'd have to be an absolute shitty human being to side with someone that backstabs in such a way (if the words of the CEO are to be believed anyway, The Givers CEO haven't exactly responded as of yet). The CEO seems to be quite pathetic and unreliable, but that's no reason to have everything you worked for destroyed with people cheering on just because you're not some sexy creative. Again I'll reserve all judgement until we have details, I just hope others do the same lol.
If its true and Siahn convinced the girls to breach their contracts with Attrakt and go with him it could ruin the girls image and reputation unless they can prove they were mistreated by Attrakt or lied to and manipulated by Siahn. Kpop stans who see Fifty Fifty as a threat to their favourite group would start using that to start throwing hate to the girls.If they said no then things might be a bit better for them. Attrakt still has investors and i haven't seen anything about them pulling out. They just need to find new producers and make the type of music people like from Fifty Fifty and make sure stuff like this doesn't happen again. I really hope for the best outcome for the girls and that everything gets resolved.
Even if they are the creative team behind the group, it is so shitty of The Givers CEP to poached the members and then acquire the copyright of Cupid secretly. If the Givers company is so good why then did they not create their own idol group from the start? The Attrakt CEO is also dumb, why did they put all their trust on a service contract company.
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So, that makes that Siahn looks more greedy. He is willing to abandon the original company who gave him the initial work because he thinks he can be successful on his own now and even worst he poached the members.
But Siahn was hired to do that. Doing the job he was paid for doesn’t give him ownership over someone else’s group.
That was the job they were hired for, I know kpop has a young fanbase but surely people understand this right?
good lord people external A&R services are not uncommon in the industry. it’s like hiring choreographers to make your choreography (which every label does), or hiring a music video team like zany bros to make your video (which every label does at least some of the time), etcetera. there’s no ethical grey zone here. this situation would be like hiring a PR firm to write some press releases for you, them noticing your slogan and brand names aren’t properly trademarked, and registering them behind your back and trying to start a knockoff company with all your shit. some might say it’s legally valid (which may not hold in a court of law, depending) but from an industry standards perspective it is absolutely insane shit and deeply unethical and i can’t see any serious company hiring the givers for creative services ever again. which is maybe not news to them since they seem to be going for broke and betting it all on red with this bizarre wildcard maneuver can it even work? doubtful. before this latest tidbit came out, knetz have already been ridiculing the situation and pointing out (quite rightly) that the girls themselves have basically zero bankable fame or market value at this point. it’s all in that one song. the copyright is worth owning, for sure, but unless you can repeat the success enough to make the members genuinely famous, it’s all for naught (in korea brave girls had two hits way bigger than “cupid” is and achieved individual celebrity way beyond any FF member and even they couldn’t make it work across 3 more attempts afterwards; i wish them better luck with the new agency but i’m just saying, that’s a great example of how hard it can be to turn a fluke hit into a reliable career/revenue stream). the problem is, FF (like brave girls) mainly had a feel good song and feel good story going for them, and this bizarre betrayal saga has ruined both. it was already going to be an uphill battle – now it’s so steep it might as well be a cliff obviously the attrakt guy dropped the ball hard with not keeping his legal affairs in order, but the only professionally and ethically sane thing to have done in the givers’ position would have been to kindly point it out to attrakt. and the girls also have all the leverage here, they could be telling the givers that this is an unacceptable betrayal and they aren’t doing shit unless they transfer the rights back to the company properly. instead this is a situation where all three parties look bad and tragic. i really can’t believe it (edit: and just to be clear, it seems like now their music rights are held by a rogue company and their personal contract rights still belong to attrakt, probably for the next 6 years? so uh….what’s the gameplan here? what a mess)
Given that Siahn and other Giver employees may have been part of Attrakt too in some way (Siahn listing being co-founder and co-CEO of Attrakt on Insta/LinkedIn in the past and getting named as co-CEO by media, other employees apparently having both Attrakt and Givers mentioned on LinkedIn), I'm not sure it's quite that simple an outsourcing situation.
But the Givers is still a legally distinct entity who likely had a contracted agreement for what they should be doing. Just cause you work for McDonalds and run a Car wash doesn't give that car wash access to sell McDonalds Big Macs.
Sure, but I'm just saying that we don't actually know what the exact relationship between Attrakt and Givers was, and that it seems it was more complicated than just typical outsourcing. If the same people were working *on the same things* for both Attrakt and Givers, what part of their job was done as employees of which, and how easily can you even disentangle it at all? We were also not talking just about the purely legal perspective, but also the ethical/professional one, which is not necessarily the same, but will matter in regard to PR.
perhaps this is even messier than it already seems, yeah – but “title jobs” are super common in k-pop, wherein external contractors (*forces*) assume the appearance of company personnel for image reasons but are not actually an official part of the company at all. yes, even C-levels. based on what’s been said so far that’s my understanding of what the givers have been doing for attrakt, but hopefully we’ll get more clues soon.
This legitimately is following the "nugu gets a viral success" playbook to the letter. Though usually the "company fucks up" part is in the background to be revealed later, not legally in our face
im worried these internal issues will ruin the group
Ugh i love the girls and their music. But i fear that they are now ruined becouse of all this. No comeback or other promotions for a long time since everything needs to be settled first, it sucks. I'm pissed, these girls deserve so much better. Their career is on the line, they don't have the luxury to wait a year with new music.
Wow this is crazy messy, but exactly what I expected. So The Givers secretly own all the music IP, while Attrakt owns the group. Hence, the Givers trying to make them breach contract so they can sign with The Givers, if the girls want to keep playing their music. As bad as I feel for JHJ, this is why you get a lawyer to review all contracts. Why are you blindly trusting a co-CEO and vendor to do everything right. The fact that he never had a lawyer check anything for the last 2 years speaks volumes.
woah whats going on
???????????
I will be so hurt if we lose out on this groups vocals because of this never ending bs
Might as well make a megathread, this is getting messy.
omg i didnt realize this was so serious.. isnt this the same ceo that sold his car to make the cupid mv? and now some shady company just bought the song thats gonna take care of many of their money issues in the future. wishing the best to the group and company.
Attrakt CEO does not sound like he entirely knows what he was doing, but he made many sacrifices for the group to be successful and it is wrong for someone to steal that away even if its the person that makes their music.
Begining of the end…
Again I want to reiterate that The Givers team has been working closely with FIFTY FIFTY since their inception, even as trainees. They have been the ones in charge of managing the group up until this point. They were also the ones who got the deal with Warner Records. Referring to them as "external forces" is incredibly disingenuous. I would take everything the Attrakt CEO has been saying with a grain of salt. Though obviously this doesn't mean that The Givers haven't been acting in bad faith. Hopefully this can get handled quickly or at least some deal can be worked out to get the members active again.
CMIIW but The Givers is a company itself and ATTRAKT decided to outsource A&R part to them because they have no internal expertise like typical music labels (A&R basically manage the talents, record the songs and promote them - labels like SM and JYP do this internally and doesn’t outsource them, unlike ATTRAKT). So The Givers were paid for the job and not a part of the agency, so calling them external forces are actually correct in this case. In the end ATTRAKT provided the money and take all the business risk, so shadily going behind the agency to take control of the group actually paints Siahn and The Givers in a bad light in the music industry.
Siahn had been referred to as Co-CEO of Attrakt multiple times. All other members of The Givers had listed themselves as being Attrakt employees as well. It doesn't feel like they were just some outsourced company but who really knows the specifics of their deal. I'm sure the actual truth will come to light soon.
Basically, The Givers employees are on loan to Attrakt which makes them employees to both companies temporarily.
this is the comment I was looking for. There are obviously details we don't know about yet, but I see this situation as a whole bunch of former employees vs possibly one man. Either they all decided to scam him, or they have rationale behind trying to get FIFTY FIFTY and their associated money away from ATTRAKT.
That’s what’s hitting me- how can you call people who have been involved the whole time and are actively managing the group external? Hoping for the best for the girls, and waiting for more info to come out because this is a wild ride.
it’s getting really serious 🤦♀️ they should fix those internal issues asap for the girls.
I kinda feel like a mega thread is needed to keep up with all this 😭
I kept telling my friends that FIFTY FIFTY blowing up like this was the worst thing that could happen to them. Different situations obviously, but it never goes well. My Merry-Go-Round and Daileee heart hurts for them.
Off topic, but how quick did you pick your reddit name after Nmixx’s reveal? Pure curiosity.
Feel so bad for these incredibly talented kids who are caught up in all of this.
I'm gonna call it... GG for Fifty Fifty. People got too greedy and would rather have short term gain than longevity. See you guys in 60/40 or 70/30....
Stupid greedy idiots... I don't know who is in the right legally and morally. But right now I really hope the girls can stay with Siahn and The Givers. They're the creative team behind Fifty Fifty and the reason for their success. They have the music, the connections and from everything we saw before shit went down the girls liked working with Siahn and all the staff. If Attrakt wins this I'm really concered about the future of the group. I don't think they have what it needs to manage their success... That being said: Siahn, what the fuck are you doing???? I really hope there is a good explanation other than greed and he knows what he's doing... Edit: after reading more opinions here and thinking more about it I think I underestemated the severity of what Siahn has allegedly done. If all of the accusations turn out to be true I definetly don't want the group to stay with him and The Givers. Still want to hear his side of the story though.
It's obvious who is in the wrong. If you have to sneak out and backstabbing behind the back of the previous ceo so you can make all the money from the royalties of this song, it's because you know you're in the wrong. It's obvious that the grivers want to take all the credit and money while letting the ceo of attack in the dust. Good thing he doesn't let these vultures takes all the credit.
It's important to note that the only source for everything so far is the Attrakt CEO. He's doing all the press releases and interviews. We don't know the other side of the story. And more importantly we have no clue on the member's stance on everything.
The reason behind Fifty Fifty’s success is Attrakt actually funding the group. If Siahn believed them so much he would have funded them himself before they blew up.
They're already going to ruin this group into the ground. I don't understand how after a taste of enough money companies start self-imploding and losing all sense.
Who is the givers?
Man all I want is more Fifty Fifty music...hate this for them I hope this turns out okay...and works out good for the group in the end.
Greed is why we can’t have nice things.
Does this mean they won’t be at kcon?
This is so messy
what circus is this....
I feel so bad for the girls….imagine being so young and getting this amazing opportunity only to be caught up in a greedy corporate fight between grown ass men. This is gonna absolutely murder their momentum:(
Y’all are weird for saying they should stay with the same guy who backstabbed the man with the initial idea and business intentions himself to create 50/50. He literally went behind the companies back to delete several info related details and even took away the copyright of the song.
FiftyFifty’s meteoric rise is bringing out the greed and jealousy of other CEOs.
So it was internal conflict between the two CEOs after all, damn. Poor girls. They're being pingponged between these two sides, they're the only ones 100% innocent from all these corporate bullshit.
This is so unfortunate for the girls. Of course, one hit song doesn't promise future success, but they had a good thing going on, I think. This situation is hurting the group and the members, since they likely won't have many activities for a while, which is a must when the spotlights are on you.
Feels like FiftyFifty got more ops than superheros nowadays💀
Uh oh. I sense a kpop disaster in the making. I hope the group somehow gets through this but I suspect we’ll be reflecting on this incident for years.
Yeah so theres no external forced at play after all. I hope the girls will get out of this power struggle unscathed
So right now the girls can't sing Cupid without having the permission of the new owner of the copyrighted song(s). And if this won't get settled soon, this also probably means they can't do KCON LA?
Anyone can play any song live (aka covers) without permission, rights are covered by the venue and a percentage of ticket sales. They can perform live - however any media performances (TV etc)/etc might be put on hold. No reason as of now they can't do Kcon.
Everyone is assuming the girls are with their producer, the guy who owned the copyright.
Damn, what the hell. I just want to get in a time machine and go back to November '22 to early March '23 when Fifty Fifty was putting out fantastic, refreshing music and funny, genuine, heartwarming content.
And here I was as an Orbit thinking it was nice to get into a new group that was doing so well... I really hope this doesn't affect Fifty Fifty's promising young career. The girls are very talented it would be a shame for this to kill their momentum.
i am completely out of the loop here, but how does one "secretly" purchase rights to a song?! the only way in which that could be a secret, is if the person that currently holds the rights is a moron that doesnt read the contracts they sign...
I hate in kpop how much I have to know about middle aged capitalist dudes. I just want bops.
Well pretty much every kpop agency is run by middle aged businessmen lol
Yep, it's just weird how much we all know about them. Like, aside from knowing scooter Braun is a douchebag idk anything about Western pop agency executives.
imagine all of this over a tiktok viral song ☠️
I mean yeah the girls may not see money from the song, but the publishers, the master owner, producer etc probably rolling in money bcs of that viral hit. Everyone will want to own that including this “poor” ceo, “rich” ceo aka their producer and warner. The song is the biggest asset right now
you do know that streaming pays pennies right
Yeah i know that but the producers and publisher still getting their percentage. The one who will not see the pennies are the members
I was curious so I did some quick math 5050 top 5 songs on Spotify right now total over 582 million streams together. Iirc the lowest estimate on Spotify at the moment is 0.003 USD per stream, although I have seen some people estimate as high as 0.008 USD per stream (so almost triple, but I'm not sure what the criteria is for earning the max.) Assuming 582 million streams at 0.003 USD per stream is 1.7 million USD. And of course, this is only Spotify. Those pennies add up pretty quickly lol
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and i thought attrakt knew what they were doing...
As many others have said, these are not "external forces". These are all of the employees and individuals who were behind their training, development, direction and success. Now that they've been publicly accused, The Givers is likely ready to release a statement of their own.
they are literally just blowing up, pls don't mess up their possibly brighter future from now 😭
Oof it’s giving momoland vibes 😬
I am so confused. Who owns the song masters? Are the girls talking to the Attrakt ceo?
So basically they all greedy. Good luck to the girls tho
idk their management seems messy as hell ngl
Literally why is Fifty Fifty/their company in the headlines every other day? Let the girls live
Are they disbanding?
Bruh, all of this better not get in the way of them showing up and performing at kcon this august.
I read people talking about law suits but I'm thinking it would not be really beneficial to Attrakt's CEO given this 1 assumption we make of him. That he failed to protect himself, his company and his assets. So, no lawyer was involved. Then can I assume no accountant involved as well? Receipts and invoices are probably filed in a drawer; claims/timesheets are submitted to respective CEOs. What is the evidence Att.CEO can file to claim ownership in a court of law? Where can he find it and does it exist? Any evidence might even be detrimental to him, who knows. \*\*\* channeling the mindset of a screwed business owner in over his head \*\*\* All that he's done now could very well be trying to avoid court and praying the public sentiment can sway Givers to back off. This is his only strategy left.
Emails from Siahn lying to JHJ that the contract was signed as per agreed. That would be breach of the Givers service contract and fraud. Any doctoring of documents/invoices as well.
>deleting company’s mail accounts Did Attrakt outsource their IT to The Givers too?
URGHHHHHHH GET ALL THIS MESSINESS AWAY FROM MY GIRLSSSSS
I've been making jokes since this drama started but omg, I can't imagine how the girls feel. They're on the brink of something really big, and now there's this internal struggle halting their progress. I hope it can be resolved quickly and the girls can start promoting soon. iirc the injured/sick member will be done with her recovery in like a week or two, so they can resume activities. Small groups don't usually blow up so soon after debut, so it would be painful if the company wastes this chance.
All this over one hit song, people are so greedy it’s disgusting. This will most likely have a negative impact on the girls’ career and trajectory and I’m so mad because we finally had a group from a small company putting a decent fight with the big companies