aespa
With their latest comeback Savage, aespa not only broke their own records in albums sales
but also debuted straight onto no 1 Top 100 Melon, becoming the very first girl group
of KPOP to achieve this title ever since the chart updated their voting rules.
The thing is, though aespa has proven well their position as the leading girl group of
gen4, they were also caught up in a bunch of copyright issues and apparently, since
this has always happened to them in every comeback, netizens are having more solid reasons
to believe that SM Entertainment is exploiting noise marketing to leapfrog in the reputation
building process of the girls. And yes, that leapfrog obviously came with a pretty hefty
price.
For SAVAGE, first let’s talk about how the concept photos of Aespa have already been
caught up with a bunch of copyright issues a few days after release. When the photo teasers
where each member would wear a virtual mask sophisticatedly designed to represent their
own symbol were uploaded, many netizens found out a huge resemblance between this concept
and the masks James Merry made for Björk Utopia in 2017.
Even critic Kim Do Hyun also joined the chat and implied that SM Entertainment was doing
something shady AGAIN, saying “The mask that appeared in aespas teaser resembles James
Mary's collection. I wonder if SM Entertainment has officially collaborated."
Not only that, on September 30, SM Entertainment also received another backlash when people
spotted another huge similarity in the teaser photo of Karina and the work by Japanese illustrator
Hajime Sorayama. Basically, two pictures shared the same elements
from the main character’s pose, the complementary entity, its material and the background color.
However, people stand divided. Many state that the original works were nothing but a
big inspiration and especially for the virtual masks, a quick Pinterest search would reveal
that a bunch of similar works were already there even before James Merry released his
photos.
On the other hand, there were also people who believed the creative team in charge of
aespa’s concept was flagrantly stealing other artists’ work and this obviously made
the image of SM Entertainment closer to the synonym of “plagiarism”.
Besides the allegations in concept photos, aespa was also accused of copying the choreography
of BLACKPINK’s How You Like That and ITZY’s Not Shy and for this particular time, choreographer
Kiel Tutin—aka the mastermind behind these three dances, was also criticized for “recycling”
the moves and joined hands with SM for some bait attention.
In fact, aespa has long been dragged into these copyright things since their debut.
Let’s have a quick look into what the company has done to make the girls frequently referred
to as the copycat of KPOP.
With Black Mamba, aespa was accused of plagiarizing the concept of German visual artist Tim Helgert
and KDA.
Not long after that, artist Bryan Huynh [Bryan Wing] also accused SM of copying his design
for aepsa’s debut concept photos, leading to the company eventually hiring him for the
next comeback Next Level.
And even for the stage of the group on Inkigayo, aespa was also accused of copying the work
of Balek Kathryn—a New York-based artist with a surreal futuristic aesthetic.
ITZY
Debuting ITZY with the girl-crush concept, JYP has multiple times raised the suspicions
that they were creating nothing more than a BLACKPINK version 2. While there were some
who believed that everything was just baseless accusations, it seemed like the latest MV
of the group had created a bunch of controversies.
After Loco was released, the MV soon made headlines in a Vietnamese outlet for sharing
too many common details to the three previous bops of BLACKPINK, from Lovesick Girl, Kill
This Love to Ddu-du-Ddu-du.
As the paper pointed out, the pinky scene where Yuna sat with a big stuffed bunny with
one eye injured was super similar to the one where Jennie wore a similar white dress and
held a stuffed bear with the same injured eye in Lovesick girl. Not only that, the scene
where all the members were wearing colorful, punky clothes and dancing in front of the
LED panel was also said to be another version of this part in Lovesick Girl.
Even the stylists of JYP were also accused of copying BLACKPINK since when netizens looked
at how Yeji and Lia were dressed, the staggering similarities were also found in Yeji’s metal
studded jacket, and the madras crop-top set of Lia. Looking at the big picture, the article
also pointed out how the punky, bratty pop-girl vibe of BLACKPINK in Kill This Love was also
re-created through the clothes, hairstyle, makeup and MV color of ITZY.
Even the billboard that ITZY danced in front of was also said to be a copy version of Kill
This Love’s poster considering how similar the font, the song title and the color combination
between black-red.
In the runway scene of Lia and the one where Chaeryeong stood on a black bulldozer to run
over boxes of present, the article also pointed out that this was just another idea copied
from BLACKPINK’s Ddu-du-Ddu-du’s scenes where Jennie flexed hard with her shopping
bags and later crushed a bunch of gifts with her bling bling tank.
In the past, the negligence of JYP Entertainment also pushed ITZY into many other hot messes
where they were hated for many allegations of copying BLACKPINK, from the outfits, singing
styles to the album releases and social media postings. However, based on what the company
has done in the latest MV of ITZY, it’s quite obvious that they didn’t learn the
lessons at all.
BTS
While Permission To Dance is one of the most successful tracks of BTS, the song still unfortunately
got caught up in a plagiarism issue after some netizens accused HYBE of choosing the
track that had way too many similar elements with two big hits of One Directions: What
Makes You Beautiful and Steal My Girl.
Things all started after a user on Twitter said that the chord progressions, harmony,
and tune of Permission To Dance sounds so much like the intro of What Makes You Beautiful
and the ending of Steal My Girl [chèn đoạn nhạc intro so sánh giữa Permission To
Dance với What Makes You Beautiful và Steal My Girl]. One even went as far as saying HYBE
had literally copied the vibe of All In This Together from Highschool Musical and didn’t
even bother to make a change to have some interesting switch up in chorus and verse.
The most surprising thing is that, not only netizens but AMRYs were also voicing their
disappointment in the alleged plagiarism this time.
Surfing Twitter for a bit, you’ll find it quite easy to see though fans were in love
and highly appreciating the positivity BTS was spreading amidst such trying times, a
few couldn’t help but wondering why the act was trying so desperately to “westernize”
themselves and gradually became a mirror of One Direction instead of the BTS that people
used to know.
Different from many previous plagiarism allegations, HYBE has yet to release any statements this
time and while Permission To Dance was a sounding success achievement-wise, many seem to can’t
say the same for the music orientation and the image of BTS.
NCT Dream
While the era of Hot Sauce has finished for long, the relevance of NCT Dream is still
there after netizens raised suspicions about whether SM Entertainment has plagiarized TXT’s
track Blue Orangeade for NCT Dream’s b-side track Countdown 3,2,1.
However, things didn't start right off the bat from the beat similarities between Countdown
and Blue Orangeade but rather with another track of TXT—Angel or Devil. Since TXT had
already released this song in 2019 in The Dream Chapter: Magic, many MOAs accused SM
Entertainment of stealing ideas but due to the fact that both Countdown and Angel or
Devil were the b-side tracks of both acts, the controversies quickly sank without drawing
much attention.
While many thought that the whole tea would already stop there, SM has recently made a
move that not only took everyone aback but also implicitly confirmed how they had plagiarized
TXT’s song and pushed NCT Dream into an unnecessary hot mess. After this suspicious
action, many online detectives started to take on this new case and soon enough, they
found out the true work that was plagiarized by SM Entertainment was Blue Orangeade.
Just more than a week ago, netizens noticed the company had silently credited two exclusive
producers of HYBE—Slow Rabbit and Supreme Boi for NCT Dream’s Countdown and considering
the fact that such information was only added after the censorship of KBS, the confirmation
of credit for NCT Dream’s songs on the physical album and many other media, people now even
have more reasons to believe that the alleged plagiarism was true.
As you can see here, there were initially no credits for Slow Rabbit and Supreme Boi
on any means of issuance from SM Entertainment.
However, several months after the allegations broke out, their names are now seen on many
media like KOMCA streaming service, Youtube video, and even Melon.
The thing is, since SM Entertainment decided to resolve things in silence rather than issuing
any official statements, netizens still found it hard to accept and have non-stop thrown
hands at the company for the past few days. On theqoo, some believed that plagiarising
has officially been the tradition of SM Entertainment and the company name is now almost the synonym
of this word.
So, do you think these were just mere coincidences because there is always a limit in music or
do you take the opposite stance? Comment down below to share your thoughts with us. Also,
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