Who Owns the Success
Two Korean negotiations with the same streaming service, a few years apart, with opposite outcomes. What European producers can learn from them — and what they cannot.
Case one: the most expensive success
When "Squid Game" appeared in 2021 it was the most successful series Netflix had broadcast to that point. Production costs were in the low tens of millions; the estimated value to the platform a multiple of that.
By consistent reporting, none of it reached the makers. The production had been commissioned against a production fee, the intellectual property sat with the platform, and there was no participation in the success. The contract details have not been published; what is public are the statements of those involved and the debate that followed.
This is not fraud but the usual structure: whoever pays for the production owns the work. In Korea the case nonetheless triggered a debate — about participation, about foreign exploitation, about who owns the value when one side carries the costs and the success accrues to the other. The Ministry of Culture later turned this into a condition: funding for streaming productions is tied to producer and platform sharing the rights.
Case two: ten billion won, and the rights stay
In March 2026 BTS returned from military service. At Gwanghwamun Square in Seoul the group gave a free concert, their first together since October 2022. Netflix broadcast it live to more than 190 countries.
The structure behind it is the remarkable part. According to industry accounts Netflix covered the entire production cost — estimated at over ten billion won, considerably more than the roughly seven billion the comparable concert in Busan cost in 2022. Neither Netflix nor HYBE has confirmed the figure.
Then came the part that occupied the Korean business press: HYBE kept the intellectual property. Netflix received worldwide broadcast rights for that one evening — no more. Rights to the rest of the tour, 82 concerts across 34 cities in 23 countries, remained with HYBE in any case.
Korean media note expressly that this departs from the norm: financing from Netflix usually means surrendering the rights.
Same company, same country, four years apart — once the rights go, once they stay.
The difference is bargaining power
It would be comforting to attribute the difference to fairness, or to lessons learned. Neither applies. The difference is market power, and it can be quantified.
| Squid Game 2021 | BTS 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Who paid | Netflix | Netflix |
| Who owns the work | Netflix | HYBE |
| Bargaining position | production company with one project | listed corporation |
| Market capitalisation | — | around 9.4 billion $ |
| Own structure in the US | none | HYBE America |
| Access | through acquisitions | direct to the top |
Negotiations had initially stalled. The breakthrough came, per Korean reporting, through HYBE America, which used its network in the United States to reach Netflix leadership directly.
One may admire this or note it soberly. For a European producer the lesson is the same: rights are not kept because they are deserved, but because one can walk away. Whoever needs the project negotiates badly. Whoever has an alternative negotiates well.
What the evening delivered
| Figure | |
|---|---|
| Viewers worldwide | 18.4 million |
| Countries | over 190 |
| Number one in | 24 countries |
| Comparison: Tyson v Paul, 2024 | over 108 million |
Netflix has been building live broadcasts as a category of their own — boxing matches, climbing events, now concerts. For the platform such an evening is not a film project but a subscriber magnet with a date: to be there, you must be a paying customer that Saturday.
For HYBE the return is indirect but larger. Billboard estimates that album, tour, merchandise and licensing could bring in more than a billion dollars over twelve months. The worldwide broadcast was above all one thing: promotion for a sold-out tour that belongs to the company alone.
The part seen critically in Korea
Reporting only the success figures leaves out the domestic debate. It is worth reading, particularly for Europeans.
The concert was free and took place in central Seoul. The public authorities provided the square, closed the district and deployed around seven thousand police, including units with anti-drone systems. The Korean business press turned this into an uncomfortable question: the state carries the cost, the revenue accrues to Netflix and HYBE.
There was also dispute over attendance. Authorities had projected 260,000, HYBE reported 104,000, while the city, the interior ministry and the police arrived at 48,000, 62,000 and 80,000. HYBE shares fell around fifteen per cent the following Monday.
And a third objection that concerns us more than the other two: the more firmly Netflix establishes itself as the venue for such events, the harder it becomes for smaller streaming services at home. Without economies of scale, you fall behind. That is a sentence one could equally say in Vienna.
What follows for us
The rights question belongs at the beginning, not the end. Where a streaming service finances production, the default is that it owns the work. Changing that must be raised at the outset, not once the contract is drafted.
Divisible rights are the realistic route. HYBE did not keep everything and give Netflix nothing — it ceded broadcast rights for one evening and kept the rest. For a European production that means: not whether rights, but which, for how long, in which territory, at which stage of exploitation.
Public funding is leverage. The Korean Ministry of Culture now ties funding to producers retaining rights. Anyone producing with public support holds an argument that purely privately financed productions do not.
Whoever pays for the production owns the work. That is the default, not a law of nature.