Belift Lab warns PH fanbase for a possible lawsuit.
On January 5, Belift Lab, Enhypen’s official agency, released a statement warning the fans regarding ENHAFESTIVAL: Day 1, now renamed ALWAYS TOGETHER: The Festival, for unauthorized usage of the company’s IP.
Following the warning, the organizers of the event released a statement through their Twitter account and decided to cancel the event for everyone’s safety.
According to the organizers, Belift Lab’s legal team contacted them on November 3, 2022, expressing their concern for a potential copyright infringement of the company’s IP, which in this case is ENHYPEN, which was also the previous name of the event, ENHAFESTIVAL: Day 1.
The organizers then responded on November 15, 2022, disclosing the whole details of the event and reiterating that ENHAFESTIVAL: Day 1 is a non-profit event and is purely organized by the fans to gather their fandom and to celebrate ENHYPEN together.
On the same day, Belift Lab requested a list of event partners, which the organizers refused to provide in order to protect their privacy. The organizers did not receive any feedback from the agency regarding this matter.
The legal team of the agency then invited the organizers to a Zoom meeting to thoroughly discuss their concerns. Belift Lab then reaffirmed their desire to cancel the event and not use ENHYPEN to promote any unauthorized activity in the future to avoid potential copyright infringement.
The organizers of the event then informed the legal team several points as to why they cannot cancel the event: they’re at 70% completion towards D-day, the organizers cannot afford a full refund to the attendees as the funds are already used for the event, and event partners and attendees are all expecting the event.
They eventually agreed to reveal all parties involved in the event, as per the request of Belift Lab, whether it pushes through or gets canceled. The organizers also decided to reformat the event from "ENHAFESTIVAL: Day 1" to "ALWAYS TOGETHER: The Festival," in which they asked for feedback on their proposal.
On January 4, the legal team of Belift Lab sent the organizers a cease-and-desist order demanding they cancel the event to avoid a possible lawsuit from the agency and gave them until January 5 to make their decision, the same day the agency released a statement regarding the issue.
The organizers then officially announced the cancellation of the event in accordance with their response to Belift Lab’s email on January 4.
The issue received different reactions from Filipino K-pop fans and Engenes, who raised their concern that this may affect the future events of the group in the country, while some were confused as fan gatherings have been part of the fandom culture in K-pop.
Written by Thea Marie Templanza Thea is a Broadcasting student from PUP Manila.
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