Star Empire reveals they did not receive permission to use concept for 9MUSES’ “Drama”

Star Empire Entertainment has officially apologized for plagiarizing W Korea’s Hong Jang Hyun work , having used the photographer’s concept for 9MUSES’ upcoming comeback.

After netizens brought up the similarities between one of W Korea’s previous magazine issues and 9MUSES’ current concept for their comeback, “Drama,” Star Empire initially released a statement saying that they had received permission from the photographer to use the concept, and was an homage to the concept as well. However, W Korea followed up with a statement revealing they had received no such request.

On January 16th, Star Empire said, “Previously, Star Empire released a statement on the 15th saying we had a ‘received consent from the photographer’ and had ‘resolved the copyright issues before shooting,’ this is not the truth. As W Korea has said previously, we weren’t able to resolve the copyright issue before shooting, and we did not get consent from the photographer. We realized our errors after sending our initial statement out, and have asked articles to fix the error. It is true that we used the concept from Hong Jang Hyun W Korea’s March 2012 issue as an inspiration for 9MUSES’ image jackets. We would like to apologize to Hong Jang Hyun and W Korea for not getting prior arrangements, and we’d like to apologize to readers for the confusion.”

Source: Star in