In February, Kelly Sweeney, an American dancer, publicly criticized HYBE on her TikTok and Instagram regarding the issue of choreography copying related to the group ILLIT. In the posted video, she pointed out that ILLIT’s choreography was identical to the one she had created. Worse yet, the company publicly released this dance clip without acknowledging her as the choreographer.
Kelly uploaded two consecutive MVs and compared each of her dance moves to those of ILLIT. The results were almost identical. “As an artist, a choreographer who has dedicated my life to creating unique dance moves and also relies on this work to make a living, it is frustrating to see people use my work without any recognition. I am very proud that you like my work, but copying will never be accepted; you need to learn to respect copyright,” Kelly wrote, tagging both HYBE and ILLIT in her post.
From then until now, the public has been waiting for HYBE’s response; however, the company has remained silent, even continuing to be accused by Min Hee Jin of copying NewJeans’ style. Recently, Kelly unexpectedly announced that HYBE had actively resolved the issue by crediting her in ILLIT’s dance practice video. She also urged the audience not to harbor ill feelings towards ILLIT because “the responsibility lies entirely with HYBE; I tagged the group only to make them aware of what was happening.”
HYBE’s handling of the issue has faced criticism from fans. “Silently using the work without permission, and when caught, not issuing an official apology. This is the behavior of a leading K-pop music company,” one comment remarked.
Source: K14
