The days of lip-syncing and hand-syncing may finally be coming to an end, as it was recently revealed that a bill for banning the two acts was presented to the Korean government. To clarify the bill proposed by the Liberty Forward Party., lip-syncing and hand-syncing are acts of mimicry, in which the artist pretends to be singing or playing an instrument. On May 13th, Senator Lee Myung Soo of the Forward Liberty Party reportedly submitted a Public Performance Act, which proposed that artists should not be allowed to lip-sync or hand-sync during commercial performances or broadcasts where the artists are given performance wages. In cases where lip-syncing and hand-syncing are unavoidable, it must be announced to the spectators beforehand that such acts will take place during their performance. Breaking this law should result in at least a year of jail time or a fine of at least $10,000 USD for negligence. Senator Lee stated, "In the past, viewers were able to watch a whole variety of different genres for performances including ballad, dance, and trot. These days, it's only dancing idol groups who are given the main focus. Due to the concentration of this particular genre, singers are trained more in their visuals rather than their singing ability." He continued, "For example, at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, a cute little girl with physically appealing facial features became a hot topic for singing the opening anthem, but it was later discovered that there was actually another girl of the same age singing for her behind-the-scenes. Ever since this global embarrassment, China has been working on legislating a law for the prohibition of lip-syncing. Even in our country, many people buy expensive tickets to watch artists sing or play live, but artists who lip-sync or hand-sync make spectators lose trust, and also obstrucst the development of our music industry. We submitted this bill as a way to solve these kinds of problems." The bill has already drawn strongly divided views, as one netizen expressed, "It doesn't make sense that singers can take thousands of dollars just for lip-syncing at an event," while another netizen voiced out, "There are times when singers need to perform intense choreography, and it's the idol dances that are the core of the Hallyu Wave, so trying to prohibit this by law doesn't make sense." Source: My Daily via Daum (1), My Daily via Daum (2)