FTC brings down the hammer on “Produce 101” unfair contracts

The Fair Trade Commission has stepped in and has ordered Mnet‘s Produce 101 to correct its unfair contracts regarding its trainee contestants.

While airing earlier this year, Produce 101 not only received attention for its talented contestants but due to the shocking contract the female trainees signed in order to join the program.

According to the leaked contract, the agency nor its trainee(s) cannot take legal action against the show should it result in any kind of negative reaction from the audience. This clause in particular protects Mnet who is well-known among viewers for their “malicious editing” in which certain contestants are edited in a bad light in order to create drama.

Another clause in the contract also deemed any remastering of existing songs or newly created choreography to be CJ E&M‘s (Mnet’s parent company) lawful properly with no compensation to the original creators. 

On April 25th, it was reported that the FTC has corrected 12 unfair terms and conditions in CJ E&M’s contract including the “malicious editing” clause. An FTC official stated, “We worked on fixing the contract at the beginning of this month. They were told to delete the part where the trainees had no right to lawfully contest damages done to their image and the part where their creation became the lawful property of CJ E&M.”

Source: Yeonhap News