Three songwriters filed a copyright lawsuit against South Korean entertainment giant Hybe, saying the K-pop supergroup BTS’ chart-topping single “Swim” was lifted from their unpublished demo with the same name.
Songwriters Steve Cooper, Jon Sandler and Greylyn Johnson filed the suit Wednesday, arguing that “Swim,” which shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 this spring as the lead single from BTS’s album “Arirang,” bore “substantial similarities” to their own work.
The complaint does not name BTS or its members as defendants, instead focusing its legal action on Hybe and its subsidiaries, Hybe America and Big Hit Music, as well as the songwriters.
Ryan Tedder, one of the songwriters on the track and a Grammy-winning songwriter and former OneRepublic frontman known for writing hits for Taylor Swift, Beyonce and Adele, is named as one of the defendants.
The lawsuit says the three songwriters sent their demo to industry contacts starting in March 2025, including executives at Artist Publishing Group. They say those executives shared the demo with others, including some of the people who later wrote “Swim.”
After the BTS song came out, the songwriters hired musicologist Alexander Stewart to analyze it. Mr. Stewart concluded that the song’s hook, harmonies, textures and rhythmic and lyrical elements were “unequivocally taken” from the demo.
The songwriters want an injunction against “Swim” as well as damages and a share of the profits, or they want to be credited as co-writers of the song and given “nearly all” of the profits it has earned as well as the copyrights.
The plaintiffs say they attempted to contact Hybe to try to work things out outside of court, to no avail.
Contact the author
Please read our comment policy before commenting.