HYBE Angers Netizens Further By Bringing Up BTS, BLACKPINK’s Jennie, aespa, And More Artists At Lawsuit Hearing

This article is part of our coverage of HYBE vs. ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin. You can read more and view the entire timeline here.

On July 18, KST, during the third hearing of HYBE‘s ₩2.50 billion KRW (about $1.80 million USD) lawsuit against Min Hee Jin, the former CEO of ADOR, the company’s legal team strongly denied accusations of ILLIT copying NewJeans.

Min Hee Jin

Previously, Min Hee Jin had claimed that ILLIT had plagiarised NewJeans across various elements, including photoshoots, music video styles, aesthetics, concepts, and even choreographies. During the hearing, the legal team representing ILLIT tried to negate these claims and sarcastically introduced the “Min Hee Jin created everything theory.”

ILLIT’s side mocked Min’s claims, stating that she acted like everything in the K-Pop world was created by her. They went on to specifically address the accusations regarding dance move plagiarism, pointing out that NewJeans had also used some key moves in their choreographies that other artists have used.

They pointed out that the “hair flip” move from “Attention ” could be found in performances by Chungha, KISS OF LIFE, aespa, Hearts2Hearts, ITZY, IVE, and more. The arm-rotation move in “Ditto” had been seen in the choreographies of BLACKPINK‘s Jennie, BTS, G-Dragon, KISS OF LIFE, and aespa. Finally, the sitting pose from “Hype Boy” had appeared in routines performed by Hyolyn and ITZY.

ILLIT’s legal team argued that these moves were common in K-Pop, and NewJeans couldn’t claim exclusive rights to them. They pointed out that labeling individual moves as plagiarism could stifle creative freedom in the industry.

While the lawsuit itself has people divided in which side they support, HYBE’s legal team’s argument has not been received well by netizens. Many of whom took issue with them mentioning other idols who had nothing to do with this legal conflict. However, some also felt that HYBE had no other way of establishing the lack of validity in Min’s claims.

| theqoo

• “How many groups are they going to mention?”
• “They’re dragging every celebrity by the hair. Seriously.”

| theqoo

• “But this isn’t really ‘dragging by the hair’—isn’t it just pointing out that similar cases exist with other artists? It’s not like they were mentioned in a negative way. How else are you supposed to explain that certain moves have a history in K-pop without mentioning other groups at all?”
• “But if they’re trying to submit evidence, isn’t that kind of unavoidable? I don’t get why people are calling it ‘dragging others by the hair.'”

| theqoo

• “Just looking at the examples HYBE brought up, it makes no sense lol. Even if head-turning choreography is common, no one watched Hearts2Hearts and thought of Attention. The point wasn’t that ‘just turning your head’ equals plagiarism. If you just start dragging in random artists like that, of course, people are going to criticize you.”
• “ILLIT, fighting!”

Meanwhile, two separate HYBE subsidiaries are currently involved in damage suits with Min Hee Jin. Source Music, the label of LE SSERAFIM, has filed a ₩500 million KRW (about $359,000 USD) defamation lawsuit against her. On the other hand, BELIFT LAB, home to ILLIT, has filed a ₩2.00 billion KRW (about $1.44 million USD) lawsuit claiming that Min’s accusations have caused the girl group reputational damage.

Stay tuned for more updates.

HYBE vs. ADOR CEO Min Hee Jin