BTS ‘Swim’ Lawsuit, Bad Bunny Ruling, StubHub Class Action & More Top Music Law News

In this week’s Legal Beat newsletter, HYBE faces a pair of copyright cases, Bad Bunny gets bad news, StubHub sued over scalping, and much more. BTS perform onstage during comeback concert at Gwanghwamun Square on March 21, 2026 in Seoul, South Korea. Kim Hong-Ji-Pool/Getty Images Trending on Billboard THE BIG STORY: It was a busy week for the copyright lawyers over at HYBE, as the kpop giant was hit with not one but two separate infringement lawsuits over songs by BTS and NewJeans. In a case filed Tuesday, a company called All Surface Publishing claimed that the 2023 NewJeans song “ETA,” a minor hit, stole multiple elements from an instrumental dance track called “Samir’s Theme” that had been released nearly two decades earlier. Related Then on Wednesday (July 8), an even bigger claim: That BTS’s “Swim” — a smash hit that debuted at No. 1 on the Hot 100 as the lead track off ARIRANG and spent 15 weeks on the chart — lifted material from an unpublished demo by three little-known songwriters. The case cited an expert report that “unequivocally” concludes the BTS track copied the earlier song. The report’s author, musicologist Alexander Stewart, is a name music lawyers
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