"BTS Tour Featuring V and Suga on Mural Street for 1.3 Million Won"... Travel Agency Sells BTS Tour Packages Without Agency's Consent

Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism Also Joins In
Infringement of Publicity Rights

Tourism products featuring BTS are being sold without the permission of their agency HYBE, and HYBE reportedly only recently became aware of this fact.

BTS V Mural Street Creation
Photo by Yonhap News

According to an SBS report on the 28th, travel agency A has been selling travel packages featuring the mural streets of V and Suga in Daegu without notifying BTS’s agency HYBE. The V mural street is decorated with a massive panoramic art mural measuring 2 meters high and 60 meters long on the outer wall of Daeseong Elementary School in Bisan-dong, Daegu, V’s alma mater. The mural installation was carried out through cooperation between China’s largest V fan club, 'Baidu V Bar,' BTS’s agency Big Hit Music, and Seogu District Office. Nearby is the Suga mural street, featuring fan-painted portraits of Suga on buildings, making it a popular spot among ARMYs both domestically and internationally.

Since July, travel agency A has included the 'Daegu V Mural Street' and 'Daegu Suga Mural Street' in their travel itineraries, promoting them with slogans like "A must-experience for K-pop fans. Embark on a K-pop trip." The price was set at a whopping 1.3 million KRW.

However, this was sold without HYBE’s permission and constitutes a violation of publicity rights, which prohibits the commercial use of a celebrity’s face or voice without consent. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism also participated in unauthorized use of the artist’s IP. They even created and distributed press releases promoting the tourism product, and the Korea Visit Year Committee under the ministry posted the travel destination information and itinerary on their website.

Frequent Commercial Exploitation of Artists’ IP Without Permission

A similar incident occurred in July. Dong-gu District Office in Gwangju (Mayor Im Taek) planned to operate a cafe featuring the girl group NewJeans to revitalize Chungjang-ro but canceled the opening a day before, drawing criticism. The project was pushed forward without consulting the agency or artists, leading to criticism over a lack of copyright awareness and waste of public funds.

The cafe was to display NewJeans albums, posters, postcards, and cups, and fans attending the event were to receive NewJeans-related goods such as keyrings through a lottery system for free. However, Dong-gu District Office abruptly canceled the event a day before after receiving complaints from NewJeans’s agency. It was reported that unauthorized 'fake goods' produced without the agency’s permission were the issue.

NewJeans’s agency conveyed to Dong-gu District Office a request not to infringe on the singer’s intellectual property rights for local government tourism promotion, explaining, "Considering the circumstances and purpose of the cafe event, we judged that a public institution, the local government, was engaging in commercial activities by unauthorized use of the artist’s IP for tourism promotion."