BTS are back and so are their lawyers. Actually, I’m not sure the legal team ever went on hiatus, but with a new BTS record and new BTS tour there’s lots more work for the attorneys.
First there’s the fact the K-pop group’s big comeback album ‘Arirang’ - their first release since BTS activities were paused so that members could complete their military service in South Korea - was leaked before release on an X account.
The BTS lawyers want to sue the anonymous person behind that leak through the courts in South Korea, where they plan to claim the leaker violated both copyright and trade secret laws.
But first they need X - or Twitter if you prefer - to reveal the identity of said leaker, which requires some legal shenanigans in the US. Because X isn’t going to name the leaker unless a US judge forces it to.
A new legal filing states that BTS and their label, HYBE’s BigHit, “invest extensive resources into planning and executing the most effective release of albums, songs, lyrics and associated material”. The aim of all that work is to “have the greatest possible impact”.
The leak of BTS’s album by an X user known as @jwngkcck “destroyed the element of surprise” that BTS and BigHit were “building up towards”, they add, and - in doing so - “negatively impacted” the new album’s “reputation and sales”.
BigHit previously submitted a copyright infringement complaint with X which seemingly prompted the leaker to remove the content that had been shared and to change their profile name on the X platform, which was ‘BTS ARIRANG LEAK’ for a time. But the K-pop label wants to seek damages from the leaker too, just as soon as they identify who that person is.
In a separate legal filing, HYBE and BigHit want the US courts to issue an injunction prohibiting the sale of knock-off BTS merch alongside shows on the group’s upcoming US tour, which kicks off in Tampa, Florida on 25 Apr.
Seeking injunctions of this kind is now quite common when big name artists tour in the US, of course, and BigHit notes it secured similar court orders for previous BTS tours. The injunction would apply to anyone planning on selling unofficial BTS merch in the vicinity of their shows and would also instruct law enforcement to seize any knock-off BTS products they see being offered for sale.
“The bootleg merchandise is of the same general appearance as official tour merchandise and is likely to cause confusion among prospective purchasers”, BigHit’s court filing declares. And “if such counterfeit and infringing activities were permitted to continue”, they add, it would cause “substantial harm”, to BTS, to HYBE and BigHit, and the merch companies they have deals with.
