| Bang Si-hyuk is now a K-pop billionaire. Bang is the founder of Big Hit Entertainment, the South Korean music company that created BTS and went public this past week. Bang left JYP Entertainment Corp., one of three companies that dominated the Korean music business, to start his own company and created the most successful Korean pop act of all-time. BTS is the only K-pop group to break out all over the world, earning four No. 1 albums in the U.S. and selling out arenas across the U.S. and Europe. This IPO has raised a lot of questions within the music industry. For one, it's not entirely clear what people are buying, as noted by former Ticketmaster CEO Nathan Hubbard on Twitter. Investors value companies based on their future growth. Boy bands seldom last more than 5 to 7 years, and barring new legislation, BTS' members will need to serve in the military in the next couple years. So investors are betting that BTS will either go against six decades of pop culture history, or that Bang will be able to replicate the success of BTS again and again. But the windfall has also prompted a thornier question: Why does Bang capture so much more of the wealth than the band members? BTS accounted for 97% of the company's sales last year, and its members hold less than 5% of the company's equity. Each member got stakes worth about $15 million, so they aren't exactly left penniless. Besides, labels have always used their financial capital to advance money to artists and retain ownership of the work. And yet, rarely has so much of the valuation of a major music company been tied up in one artist. Should they have been given shares as part of their compensation, or as a reward every time an album made it big? The music industry is in the middle of a new chapter in the never ending saga of the Artist vs. The Man. It is the rare debate in which Kanye West and Taylor Swift are on the same side, arguing that record contracts are tantamount to indentured servitude. Despite the best intentions of West and Swift, the people who really suffer from the structure of the music business are the young, impressionable artists who don't have the power to set the terms or renegotiate their deals. Chauncey Hollis can't escape a mistake he made when he was just 19 years old. Hollis, better known as the producer Hit-Boy, has produced some of the biggest hits of the last decade, including Jay-Z and Kanye West's "N***** in Paris" and Travis Scott's "Sicko Mode." This year alone he worked on new albums from Big Sean and Nas. And yet, after more than a decade of making hits and working on more than 400 songs, he hasn't satisfied his first publishing deal. "They know they got me in this contract where I can't do nothing," he said. "It's a big finesse." (Like BTS, Hit-Boy is making plenty of money. He's just not making as money as he could or, in his opinion, should be.) Artists hoped the rise of social media and streaming would shift the power back into their hands. They no longer need as much help promoting or releasing their music. Some industry executives argue labels are just banks or venture capitalists, providing upfront money in exchange for a piece of the ultimate rewards. While successful musicians do have more power than they once did, the reality is that labels aren't going anywhere. Most artists don't have the infrastructure to do all the work themselves, and even the biggest acts like Taylor Swift and Drake, rely on labels to pull off major releases. Those executives who acknowledge labels are here to stay, at least in the short term, are keen to think about what can change. Many artists are now demanding ownership of their work as part of their deals. And many others are seeking a greater level of transparency. It's the rationale behind Create/os, a new record deal simulator that can help artists decide if they are in a fair deal. It's possible none of this would have helped Hit-Boy or BTS. They were signed before their breakouts, so securing ownership would be difficult. And the Korean music industry in particular operates in a different model, meaning the management company/label is more hands-on with each artist. But if we are going to examine exploitation and unfair deals in music, you've got to start at the very beginning. Artists don't just want more control over their music, they want shares in the companies that release that music as well. -- Lucas Shaw The best of Screentime (and other stuff) | 
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