{"id":171299,"date":"2026-07-10T12:17:02","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T19:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/?p=171299"},"modified":"2026-07-10T12:17:02","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T19:17:02","slug":"big-hit-music-denies-copyright-claims-against-bts-song-swim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/big-hit-music-denies-copyright-claims-against-bts-song-swim\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Hit Music denies copyright claims against BTS&#8217; song Swim"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Big Hit Music rejects the allegations<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Big Hit Music<\/strong> has denied allegations that<strong> BTS<\/strong>&#8216; song &#8220;<strong>Swim<\/strong>&#8221; infringes on the copyright of a demo created by three American songwriters. On Friday, July 10, 2026, the company released an official statement describing the allegations as unsupported and insisting that the song was created independently. \u201c&#8217;Swim&#8217; is an independent creation,\u201d the agency affirmed. \u201cThe allegations in the lawsuit are unilateral and unsubstantiated. We will respond firmly through the appropriate legal process.\u201d The statement came after songwriters Steve Cooper, Jon Sandler, and Greylyn Johnson filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, claiming their recording was shared without credit.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"BTS (\ubc29\ud0c4\uc18c\ub144\ub2e8) \u2018SWIM\u2019 Official MV\" width=\"1240\" height=\"698\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b4iVv91Z6lY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<h2>The lawsuit claims the songs share similarities<\/h2>\n<p>According to the complaint, the three writers began working on their own version of &#8220;Swim&#8221; in early 2025 and completed a demo in March of that year. They claim the recording was shared with several music industry contacts and may eventually have reached the writers of BTS&#8217; song. The lawsuit also cites an analysis by musicologist Alexander Stewart, who reportedly found similarities between the two tracks in areas including the title hook, harmony, rhythm, texture, and lyrics. The complaint names HYBE, HYBE America, Big Hit Music, and several co-writers of the song as defendants. However, the BTS members are not included in the lawsuit.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-pullquote\">\n        <blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">BIGHIT Music has firmly denied the plagiarism allegations against BTS&#39; &quot;SWIM&quot; and announced that it will pursue legal action, stating that &quot;SWIM&quot; is an independently created work that does not copy any other song.<\/p>\n<p>source (<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/QtI1y3e9Px\">https:\/\/t.co\/QtI1y3e9Px<\/a>) <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/hUUUvkBGHd\">pic.twitter.com\/hUUUvkBGHd<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; HYBE Charts (@HYBE_Chart) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/HYBE_Chart\/status\/2075484405733478832?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 10, 2026<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n        <\/figure>\n        \n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>The plaintiffs seek damages and songwriting credit<\/h2>\n<p>The three songwriters are asking the court to stop the commercial use of &#8220;Swim&#8221; and to award damages if they win the case. As an alternative, they are requesting recognition as co-writers of the track along with a share of future copyright royalties. &#8220;Swim&#8221; served as the lead single from BTS&#8217; latest album, ARIRANG. The song debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and marked the start of the boy group&#8217;s stellar return to the music scene.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Big Hit Music rejects the allegations Big Hit Music has denied allegations that BTS&#8216; song &#8220;Swim&#8221; infringes on the copyright of a demo created by three American songwriters. On Friday, July 10, 2026, the company released an official statement describing the allegations as unsupported and insisting that the song was created independently. \u201c&#8217;Swim&#8217; is an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3104,"featured_media":171307,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2264,16,7],"tags":[49],"class_list":["post-171299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","category-kpop","category-news","tag-bts"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171299","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171299"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171299\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":171311,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171299\/revisions\/171311"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.musicmundial.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}