JAKARTA - NewJeans has been officially sued in the United States for alleged copyright infringement on their popular single released in 2024, How Sweet.
The lawsuit adds to a long list of legal disputes involving the management and their parent label, HYBE.
Launching a report by Billboard, the lawsuit was filed by four songwriters - Audrey Armacost, Aidan Rodriguez, Adam Gokcebay, and Michael Campanelli - who claimed that elements in the song "How Sweet" illegally copied parts of their demo song titled "One of a Kind".
The plaintiffs are demanding royalty compensation from NewJeans, ADOR, and HYBE as the parent company.
The problem started in January 2024, when Armacost received an instrumental track through a publisher. He was asked to develop a topline melody and lyrics as a candidate song for NewJeans.
Together with three other writers, they composed and recorded the demo "One of a Kind". However, after going through the curation process, the song was eventually rejected by NewJeans management.
Ironically, four months after the rejection notice, NewJeans released "How Sweet".
The plaintiffs asserted that the first verse in the song has substantial similarities with their demo, both quantitatively and qualitatively.
Based on the technical analysis attached in the lawsuit, the two songs share a topline melody sequence consisting of 31 notes in about eight bars, as well as using a 4/4 meter and an identical B-flat minor scale.
Responding to this serious accusation, the ADOR immediately gave a strong rebuttal. They stated that they had coordinated with the Bana label, which handled the production of the song, to ensure the authenticity of the work.
"After confirming with Bana, who handled the songwriting and production of the track, we were informed that there was no plagiarism. ADOR and the members (NewJeans) also plan to respond to this lawsuit actively in accordance with the position taken by Bana," wrote ADOR's official statement.
This case has come under sharp scrutiny because it differs from the previous conflict with British jazz-funk band Shakatak.
In the case of the song "Bubble Gum", Shakatak claimed that there was a similarity in rhythm with the song "Easier Said Than Done" (1981).
However, in the case of "How Sweet", the producers of NewJeans are known to have direct access to the demo song material sent by the plaintiff during the production process, thus strengthening the "access" argument in copyright law in the United States.
For information, the two NewJeans songs that were hit by copyright issues, namely "Bubble Gum" and "How Sweet", were produced by 250 under the Bana label.
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