Songwriters who previously filed a copyright infringement lawsuit claiming that BTS SWIM copyright lawsuit involved plagiarism of their unreleased work have voluntarily dropped the case, roughly four months after initiating legal action.
According to American music trade publication Billboard, legal representatives for songwriters Steve Cooper, John Sandler, and Graylin Johnson submitted documents to the court on November 4 (local time) requesting the complete dismissal of the lawsuit.
However, the court documents did not specify whether both parties reached a settlement, and neither side has released a separate official statement regarding the dismissal.
Previously, the three songwriters filed a copyright infringement lawsuit in July at the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California against HYBE, HYBE America, Bighit Music, and producer Ryan Tedder, among other members of the SWIM production team. BTS members themselves were not named as defendants in the filing.
The plaintiffs claimed that they had distributed their unreleased demo tracks to publishing groups and other music industry insiders starting in March of last year, and argued that the tracks were shared with some of the SWIM production team during this process.
They also asserted copyright infringement based on an analysis by a musicologist they hired, claiming there were substantial similarities between the two songs.
In response, Bighit Music stated at the time that the lawsuit was merely the plaintiff’s one-sided claim, emphasizing that SWIM is an independent creation. The agency further stated that it planned to respond strongly through future legal procedures.
SWIM serves as the title track of BTS’s fifth full-length album, ARIRANG, released in March. The song debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 main singles chart, marking BTS’s seventh career chart-topping hit on the Hot 100.
