As season 2 of Squid Game approaches spare a thought for the creator who gave up his IP rights and so is famous - but not rich

The recent announcement of the remaining cast for Season 2 of Squid Game has led to a flurry of stories appearing in the press about the show. It is an increasingly important show in the Netflix stable given the US writers' strikes are now disrupting the production of shows based in the States. Included in much of the coverage are reports that the creator of the show, Hwang Dong-hyuk gave up his intellectual property rights and so has not personally benefitted financially from the outstanding success of Season 1 around the world. It is easy in such situations to say that Mr. Hwang should have kept his IP rights. However, often this comes down to the negotiating power of the creator (or writer or performer) versus the negotiating power of the platforms like Netflix. Mr. Hwang wrote the series in 2008 and tried many times to get Korean studios interested in producing it. He was not successful. Netflix agreed to take it on. It is likely that Mr. Hwang was not in the strongest negotiating position by that time. We do not know what IP advice Mr. Hwang received. However, it is true that an artist's negotiating power can be greatly enhanced by having professional advisors help them with such negotiations.