Ad production company Dolphin Entertainment loses appeal

Appeals court: director's cut posted without written consent

Members of girl group NewJeans leave the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, after a hearing on an injunction request last year. [Yonhap]
Members of girl group NewJeans leave the Seoul Central District Court in Seocho-gu, Seoul, after a hearing on an injunction request last year. [Yonhap]

Ador has won its appeal in a damages lawsuit against ad production company Dolphin Entertainment over the unauthorized posting of a NewJeans music video on YouTube, with the Seoul High Court upholding the 1 billion won ($748,000) award from the first trial.

The Seoul High Court's Civil Division 5-3 dismissed appeals from both sides Thursday in the case Ador brought against Dolphin Entertainment and director Shin Woo-seok.

"Ador's claim is that Dolphin Entertainment violated its contractual obligation not to post or release the music video without prior written consent," the court said. "Even if Dolphin Entertainment received verbal consent, posting the director's cut without prior written consent constitutes a breach of contract."

The appeals court set damages at 1 billion won, the same figure as the first trial, though it applied a different calculation method.

The first trial had assessed the penalty clause at 4 billion won — twice the 2 billion won service fee for the music video — and then awarded 1 billion won, the portion Ador had claimed. The appeals court ruled that 1 billion won was the meaningful penalty amount and that anything beyond it would violate public decency, declaring the excess void.

Dolphin Entertainment uploaded a director's cut of the "ETA" music video to its own YouTube channel in August 2024. Ador filed a lawsuit seeking about 1.1 billion won in damages in September 2024, calling the upload an unauthorized release.

During the proceedings, Dolphin Entertainment argued that a verbal agreement to post the director's cut had been reached while Min Hee-jin was serving as Ador's chief executive. Ador countered that no such verbal agreement existed and that, even if one had, a clear written modification would have been required to supersede the contractual written-consent requirement.

The first trial had also ruled in Ador's favor.

In January, the first-instance court ordered Dolphin Entertainment to pay Ador 1 billion won, finding that the company had breached its contract. A separate claim of 100 million won against Shin personally was dismissed.


notstrong@heraldcorp.com