Crackdown on unofficial BTS items leaves fans feeling caught in crossfire

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Crackdown on unofficial BTS items leaves fans feeling caught in crossfire

Published: 15 Apr. 2026, 17:24

SHIN HA-NEE
[email protected]

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

BTS merchandise, including official light sticks, is displayed at a coffee shop in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on March 19. [YONHAP]

As BTS opened its “Arirang” world tour at Goyang Main Stadium over the weekend, Korean authorities swept through the area outside the venue, cracking down on illegal K-pop merchandise.

While the operation mainly targeted street vendors and organized sellers of bootleg goods, it also affected some fans who sell or hand out their own unofficial goods and freebies — an activity that has long existed in a legal gray zone, often quietly tolerated by entertainment agencies.

“This is the first time anything like this has happened to me during a cafe event; I’m really taken aback,” wrote a BTS fan on X on April 9, the first day of the Goyang concert. The fan said that paper cup sleeves they had designed for a themed cafe event, which was included in a package of free items offered to other fans, were confiscated because they used an official group photo of BTS.

BTS performs the first of its three concerts at Goyang Main Stadium in Goyang, Gyeonggi, on April 9, as part of the group’s ongoing “Arirang” world tour. [BIGHIT MUSIC]

BTS merchandise, including official light sticks, is displayed at a coffee shop in Yongsan District, central Seoul, on March 19. [YONHAP]

In a later post, the fan said officials removed not only the sleeves featuring the official image but also posters and other small items with the name “BTS,” while other goods featuring fan-taken photographs or original fan designs were mostly given leeway.

Elsewhere around the concert, some fans who had planned to hand out or sell self-made merchandise near the stadium posted notices online saying they would postpone distribution or mail the items instead, hoping to avoid enforcement by authorities.

The onsite monitoring was part of a broader campaign by Korea’s Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP), which has been intensifying its crackdown on illegal K-pop goods in cooperation with HYBE, BTS’s agency. The ministry said roughly 4,000 items were seized near the concert site during the enforcement period, including photobooks and calendars selling for up to 20,000 won ($13.50).

Additionally, the ministry also conducted an intensive enforcement operation in February and March, ahead of the concerts, in Seoul and Busan’s tourist areas, seizing about 20,000 items that used IP from nine K-pop acts managed by HYBE.

Unlicensed K-pop merchandise identified by Korea’s Ministry of Intellectual Property during a special crackdown in Seoul and Busan from February to March ahead of BTS’s “Arirang” concerts [MOIP]

“Protecting intellectual property such as trademark and publicity rights is key for the K-pop industry, which has been built through much investment and effort, to keep advancing forward,” said Kim Yong-hoon, head of the Intellectual Property Protection & International Cooperation Bureau at MOIP.

However, one X post about the news of MOIP’s March crackdown wrote, “Don’t you think it’s getting too much?” The post gained over 30,000 likes.

Treading a fine line

On paper, the legal boundaries are clear: Selling unlicensed goods that use an artist’s name, image or other protected intellectual property could be illegal, whether sold by professional vendors or by fans.

But K-pop fandom has rarely operated according to clear legal lines.

Unofficial fan-made goods have long been deeply woven into the K-pop idol culture, such as birthday cafe events, slogan banners, cup sleeves and photocards, which are sometimes shared only in small quantities or distributed for free, but also can turn into quite a lucrative business within bigger fandoms.

Illegal K-pop merchandise identified by Korea’s Ministry of Intellectual Property during a special crackdown in Seoul and Busan from February to March ahead of BTS’s “Arirang” concert [MOIP]

That culture has for years lived in coexistence with the entertainment agencies, which have often looked the other way in the highly participatory ecosystem of K-pop.

Amateur photographers who run fan sites, known as “home masters,” for instance, sometimes monetize photos of K-pop artists to create their own goods, in potential violation of publicity rights. Yet such practices have been largely tolerated and even indirectly accommodated by companies, mostly due to their promotional effects and boosts in visibility.

“In reality, it has been difficult to draw a hard line against all fan activity,” said a source from a major K-pop agency, who requested anonymity. “Companies know there would be backlash if they were seen as policing fans too aggressively.”

Scale matters

Meanwhile, Korea’s IP authorities have been expanding enforcement against counterfeit goods since 2019 to protect the commercial value of the country’s entertainment industry. The primary targets remain large-scale manufacturers and wholesalers, which have long been associated with cheap, low-quality goods commonly sold in tourist areas and major concert venues.

Authorities have generally distinguished commercial operators from fans, limiting their response to warnings or confiscations rather than pursuing criminal investigations against individuals involved in fan projects.

Officials from Korea’s Ministry of Intellectual Property (MOIP), formerly the Korean Intellectual Property Office, conduct a crackdown on an illegal K-pop merchandise seller in Seoul in 2025. [MOIP]

“Intellectual property rights in goods are generally protected through trademark rights, design rights and copyrights,” explained Kim Seong-hyeon, a patent attorney who runs Lawmun IP Law Firm.

Trademark and design infringement, he said, usually depend on whether someone is using those protected elements “as a business,” while copyright infringement can depend on whether items are produced and distributed to the public at large, which may leave some room for fans.

But, Kim said, that doesn’t mean fan-made goods should be exempt from scrutiny or legal constraints.

“The problem now is that there are cases where unofficial goods are being sold and produced [by fan accounts] to an unspecified number of people as a form of business, rather than simply fans exchanging goods among acquaintances,” Kim noted. “In some cases, sellers had made over 100 million won a year, meaning that unofficial goods are no longer simply fan expression but are turning into unlicensed commercial activities.”

Even so, “there may still be room to tolerate certain forms of fan expression, so long as they remain within the boundaries of the law,” the attorney added.

Shoppers browse official BTS merchandise at a store in Jung District, central Seoul, on March 19. [NEWS1]

Enforcement at fans' expense?

That is the balance authorities and agencies are now required to achieve — cracking down on large-scale infringement that erodes K-pop’s brand value without stifling the fan culture that helped drive the industry’s global rise.

And that issue extends well beyond Korea. Unofficial goods are sold and distributed by international fans at concerts all around the world, often with little oversight, as Korean authorities have limited ability to intervene overseas.

Despite the ongoing campaign by agencies and authorities, longstanding demand for unofficial and fan-made goods is likely to persist to some degree, said Kim Jung-won, an ethnomusicologist teaching K-pop culture at Yonsei University, citing issues of variety, accessibility and affordability.

“Fans have their own preferred designs and aesthetics, and official merchandise often fails to fully satisfy that demand,” Kim said, adding that illegal goods, to a certain extent, have contributed to broadening the accessibility of K-pop culture to the wider public.

While Kim noted that it is inevitable for some fans to be affected by crackdowns on illegal goods, authorities stressed that the goal is not to suppress fandom culture but to protect and promote the industry.

“The purpose of trademark enforcement is to protect the distinct brand image that Korea's entertainment industry has built through significant investment and effort,” a MOIP official said. “If that begins to be framed as regulating fandom, then it would stray from the original intent of the crackdown.”

Rooting out illegal goods is also crucial for protecting the image of K-pop artists for foreign tourists, the official stressed.

“The ministry's aim is not only to protect registered trademarks, but also, on a broader level, to safeguard the brand image attached to the trademarks Korean companies have built.”

BY SHIN HA-NEE [[email protected]]