NewJeans Sued For Alleged Plagiarism + ADOR Responds
ADOR has officially commented on NewJeans being faced with a lawsuit for alleged plagiarism.
On 8 May local time, Billboard reported that four songwriters—Audrey Armacost, Aidan Rodriguez, Adam Gokcebay, and Michael Campanelli—had sued the members of NewJeans, their agency ADOR, and its parent company HYBE over purported similarities between NewJeans’ 2024 hit “How Sweet” and a demo submitted during the songwriting process.
According to Billboard, Audrey Armacost “was sent an instrumental track by her publisher in January 2024 and was invited to submit topline lyrics and melody for consideration by NewJeans.” The four songwriters claim that they sent a demo written and recorded over that instrumental, titled “One of a Kind,” to NewJeans, but were informed that it had not been selected. However, when “How Sweet” was released four months later, they allegedly noticed similarities between the song and their demo.
The songwriters assert in their lawsuit that the first verse of “How Sweet” is “quantitatively and qualitatively similar” to the first verse of their demo, adding, “Both works are in 4/4 metre and the key of B flat minor. And both works contain a topline that includes an approximately eight-bar, 31-note melodic sequence consisting of four series.”
On 9 May KST, ADOR officially responded by stating, “Upon checking with BANA (Beasts And Natives Alike), who were responsible for composing and producing this song, their position is that there was no plagiarism involved. ADOR and the [NewJeans] members plan to respond to the lawsuit in accordance with BANA’s stance [on the allegations].”
