Park Jin-young, co-chairman of the Popular Culture Exchange Committee. [Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism]
Park Jin-young, co-chairman of the Popular Culture Exchange Committee. [Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism]

A global K-pop festival backed by the government and spearheaded by Park Jin-young, chief creative officer of JYP Entertainment, has run into controversy over how its intellectual property is being managed. Questions arose after it emerged that the trademark for "Fanomenon" — the festival's core brand asset — was filed first under the name of a private company affiliated with the festival's co-chairman, rather than under a government body or public organizing entity. The Presidential Popular Culture Exchange Committee, which oversees the project, said the move was an unavoidable step to prevent overseas misappropriation and announced plans to transfer the trademark to a dedicated corporation later.

The Popular Culture Exchange Committee said Friday that JYP Entertainment is currently filing for overseas trademark rights for Fanomenon "to quickly secure rights in overseas markets ahead of potential bad-faith registrations," adding that "the specific division of rights will be discussed and finalized after the overseas filing process is complete." The committee said a nimble private company was needed to act preemptively against unauthorized trademark squatting or malicious misuse by local brokers or third parties abroad.

The controversy centers on who filed the trademark and where ownership will ultimately rest. The domestic trademark was initially filed solely by JYP Entertainment, led by Park, the committee's co-chairman, before being restructured into a 50-50 split with the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. The dispute widened Thursday when TV Chosun, citing the terms of the agreement between the two sides, reported that the structure gave JYP sole filing and ownership of the Fanomenon trademark. Critics questioned whether a publicly funded festival brand was effectively being privatized by a listed entertainment company.

The committee pushed back on those concerns, saying the overseas trademark "will be transferred to a dedicated corporation responsible for executing the event." On the domestic side, it said JYP Entertainment had filed first and later transferred a 50 percent stake to the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to establish a joint-filing structure in line with the project's original public-private partnership model. It added that JYP's remaining stake would also be transferred in full to the dedicated corporation to be established for the event.

In effect, the approach has been to let a private company file and set the framework for both domestic and overseas trademarks first, with public ownership secured or transferred to a new entity only afterward — a "private filing first, public transfer later" model.

Fanomenon is the flagship project of the Popular Culture Exchange Committee, co-chaired by Culture Minister Choi Hwi-young and Park. Built around a joint venture involving the four major entertainment companies — Hybe, SM, YG and JYP — the festival is set to launch with a fandom awards ceremony at Seoul Arena and Goyang Kintex in December 2027. The blueprint calls for annual fandom awards shows, followed by a full-scale festival in Los Angeles in 2028, billed as South Korea's answer to Coachella.

To head off privatization concerns, the committee said the government and the Popular Culture Exchange Committee "will thoroughly put in place institutional safeguards to ensure public interest, including reinvesting operating revenues from the event," pledging to ensure Fanomenon "is pursued in a stable manner grounded in public interest and transparency."


shee@heraldcorp.com