The plagiarism scandal surrounding (G)I-DLE member Soyeon has taken another turn as multiple netizens realized that the song in question has been registered with the KOMCA under the singer’s name, rather than that of the apparently legitimate writers. On February 27, 2022, the popular idol sang the now-controversial song SUN on MBC’s idol audition program My Teenage Girl, where Soyeon serves as a mentor. The song originally attributed the (G)I-DLE leader as both composer and writer, which surprised many ATEEZ fans. Many of them noted that the music reminded them of ATEEZ’s tune WAVE.
So.. Soyeon copyrighted sun and didn’t even credit eden-ary…
I just hope that all of this mess translated into support for ateez pic.twitter.com/2aMQgO5w8v— 𝔂𝓸❦ 𝓯𝓸𝓾𝓷𝓭𝓪𝓽𝓲𝓸𝓷𝓼 𝓸𝓯 𝓭𝓮𝓬𝓪𝔂 (@_siniyo) June 20, 2022
At the KOMCA registration, SUN credited solely (G)I-Soyeon DLE’s and Pop Time.
Edenary, the composer for WAVE, was put on the SUN credit list after getting a lot of flak. However, it now seems that the addition did not extend to the Korea Music Copyright Association (KOMCA), where the music was registered late.So-Yeon and CUBE Entertainment both apologized for the alleged plagiarism at the time of the scandal. Even back then, their efforts to recognize the original designers were greeted with criticism, since Edenary team members claimed they were not notified about the attribution.
Many netizens, mostly ATEEZ supporters, have recently pointed out that, although SUN has officially been registered with the Korea Music Copyright Association, the composition credits are entirely assigned to Soyeon and Pop Time, with Edenary conspicuously missing. The identity of the production team has also been removed from the track’s description on major streaming sites.
This move has been widely condemned, with many blaming (G)I-DLE Soyeon and the agency of seeking to “brush the matter under the rug.” Many also claimed that they were attempting to justify their immoral plagiarism act for the Korea Music Copyright Association. Many Soyeon admirers, on the other side, argued that the singer was well within her rights to claim full credit for the song. They also stated that SUN is not plagiarized since KOMCA is extremely stringent about plagiarism.
Meanwhile, CUBE Entertainment issued an apology on March 1st, stating:
“We would want to express our official stance on the MBC My Teenage Girls competition song SUN, in which (G)I-Soyeon DLE’s performed.” First and foremost, we apologize for confusing many people with the publication of the competition song SUN.
According to the agency, it was only after the MBC program aired that they detected similarities with the ATEEZ music.
“We detected the resemblance of several tunes immediately after the broadcast via monitoring, and in this respect, our artist personally conveyed the problem to the composer and apologized.”
However, both the apology and the explanation failed, with KQ Entertainment rejecting any efforts to communicate and ATEEZ followers claiming that the apology was only an attempt to preserve face.
