"All Just Copy and Paste"... NewJeans Director Also Explodes Over 'Plagiarism Allegations'

Conflict Grows Among Labels Under HYBE

Amid conflicts between entertainment agency HYBE and its subsidiary label ADOR, another HYBE-affiliated label, Belift Lab's group I-LAND, has been accused of plagiarizing NewJeans' choreography. The performance directors responsible for NewJeans' choreography also appeared to agree with these claims, which is expected to further fuel the controversy.

On the 14th, multiple online communities posted a thread titled "I-LAND's Lucky Girl Syndrome choreography looks similar to NewJeans' McDonald's CM song choreography." Lucky Girl Syndrome is a new song by I-LAND under Belift Lab.

Choreography moves suspected of plagiarism. [Image source=YouTube capture]

The netizens who posted the thread claimed that the choreography for the song resembles the choreography from NewJeans' McDonald's commercial last year. The choreography involves crossing both hands in an X shape while rolling the feet. One netizen even posted a clip that cross-edited I-LAND's song choreography with NewJeans' CM song choreography.

As the controversy grew, choreographers who participated in creating NewJeans' choreography at the time also posted comments seemingly agreeing with the claims, drawing attention. NewJeans' performance director Kim Eun-joo wrote on her Instagram story, "I have really held back until now, but this is a bit much to be a coincidence," adding, "It can be similar. Usually, people refer to each other’s work and make slight modifications out of courtesy, but this is just copy-paste all over."

Directors who participated in creating NewJeans' choreography also posted messages that seemed to express dissatisfaction.
[Image source=Instagram]

Another director, BlackQ, said, "I endured it thinking 'No way,' but it even extended to the commercial choreography," adding, "The process someone went through to achieve this must not have been easy."

This is not the first time conflicts have arisen between I-LAND and NewJeans. Min Hee-jin, CEO of ADOR, previously raised suspicions that I-LAND copied NewJeans. At a press conference on the 23rd of last month, Min stated, "When I raised the issue that I-LAND copied NewJeans, HYBE tried to dismiss me," and claimed, "I-LAND copied NewJeans in all areas of entertainment activities, including hair, makeup, costumes, choreography, photography, videos, and event appearances."