Photocard and a Legal Issue on Unfair Trade Practices under Competition Law

Abstract

This article’s objective is to showcase a legal aspect of unfair trade practices under the competition law caused by the random photocard that a purchaser gets for free when buying K-POP artists’ albums. The author provides the fact that a large amount of money has been dumped by K-POP enthusiasts to specifically get a photo card, which is a free random gift included with an album of their most desirable one. The information also demonstrates that there has been a bulk purchase of K-POP artists’ albums with the sole intention of only collecting the free photo cards and then throwing tonnes of the unpacked albums away. There is an argument that this complimentary photocard marketing scheme leads to issues of unfair exploitation for K-POP fans, as well as the forced buying of albums. These problematic outcomes from the marketing scheme have led to controversial criticism that the free random photocard strategy may be prohibited as unfair trade practices under the competition law. Moreover, this paper explains the legal principles of unfair trade practices by referencing the competition laws of the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Thailand.