It seems to be a recurrent topic among fans of groups that are “mismanaged” to wish that the group will not renew their contract and leave to find better conditions elsewhere. Sadly this hardly happen.

Looking at all the departures of artists under Korean entertainment companies, to a big extent only soloists “survive” when parting ways with their original company (Sunmi, Lee Hi, Hyuna...) wether it’s on bad terms or not, it’s seems to be easier for them to continue with their career.

For groups it’s hardly happened. The few exceptions that I can named are : Epik High (leaving Wollim entertainment for Map the Soul and then for YG entertainment and finally settling down in a company that managed only them) ; Beast leaving Cube entertainment only as 6 members and changing their stage name to Highlight.

But these are 1st gen and 2nd gen groups and only exceptions.

Kpop companies have tendencies of intentionally sabotaging groups that leave them on bad terms, the best example is SM with the three ex members of TVXQ (still not allowed to promote on music shows for more than 10 years) this also happened with Jessica of SNSD when she was trying to pursue her music career after her departure from SNSD.

Based of the number of lawsuits from their ex artists that left, SM seems to be the company where it’s the hardest to leave, especially if it’s to continue a music career in Korea - acting seems to be a branch where they have less power to block someone.

Another alternative that I think that Kpop fans should consider is renewing contracts on new terms. Groups that did that: SNSD - yes some members left but according to Tiffany (interview on the Zack Sang Show) this is the decision that they collectively made in other to promote separately and still have the capacity to promote under SNSD’a name as a big group. Thus the remaining members under SM are called “Oh GG” (group’s name to be use when the group will comeback with all members) contrary to TVXQ (only the two members under SM are using the group’s name definitely excluding the three other members).

The big difficulty in this matter in the right over the group’s name or even stages names ( similar case with Gdragon and Taeyang owned by YG).

So when you wished for your group to leave, a genuine wish from fans that want the best for their group, this can ruined their career and in most of the cases those groups “unofficially” disband and will not be able to promote together.

Real time edit: Akmu just renewed their contract too