Three Los Angeles songwriters have filed a lawsuit against HYBE and the writers behind BTS‘s single SWIM, alleging that the track copied a demo they had written.
Steve Cooper, Jon Sandler and Greylyn Johnson filed the complaint on Wednesday (July 8) in the US District Court for the Central District of California.
They allege that SWIM, the lead single from BTS’s album Arirang, reproduces a composition of the same name that the three of them wrote and recorded as a demo in early 2025.
The plaintiffs completed their SWIM demo in March 2025 and began sending it to industry contacts to gauge interest, according to the complaint, obtained by MBW and which you can read in full here.
Among the recipients, the lawsuit says, was the publishing company Artist Publishing Group (APG), a named defendant.
The complaint alleges that APG representatives listened to the demo and shared it with others, including Derrick Milano, a songwriter signed to APG and a credited co-writer of BTS’s SWIM.
A listening report from the music-sharing platform Disco.ac, attached to the complaint as an exhibit, shows that the demo was played by those reps, the plaintiffs say.
The lawsuit says the plaintiffs also sent the recording to Noreen Prunier-Winans, whom it describes as head of A&R and publishing at ATG Group, and that she shared it with other songwriters and producers.
BTS worked on Arirang in Los Angeles in 2025, meeting songwriters and producers to select material, the complaint says.
It cites the Netflix documentary BTS: The Return as referencing a track titled SWIM among the material.
The Arirang album, containing SWIM, was released in March 2026.
The plaintiffs say that after repeated listens they concluded BTS’s SWIM had copied their work, and in April 2026 engaged a musicologist, Alexander Stewart, to compare the two songs.
In a preliminary report quoted in the complaint, Stewart refers to the plaintiffs’ song as “SJG” and to the BTS track as “BTS”.
“My research, investigation and analysis have determined that the versions of these songs titled ‘Swim’ contain significant similarities and that these elements in BTS were unequivocally taken from SJG,” Stewart writes.
“These similarities encompass the signature phrase (or ‘hook’) referencing the title, unusual harmonies, textures, and rhythmic and lyrical elements. A prior art search has revealed no other songs containing this expression and no songs as similar to these songs as they are to each other,” Stewart adds.
“In my expert opinion, independent creation of BTS can be ruled out and copying is the inescapable conclusion,” Stewart writes.
Stewart concludes that BTS’s SWIM “would not exist in anything like its present form without the pervasive influence of” the plaintiffs’ song.
The plaintiffs registered their SWIM composition with the US Copyright Office, according to a certificate attached to the complaint.
They are seeking an injunction against further use of BTS‘s SWIM, along with damages and a share of the profits, in amounts to be determined at trial.
In the alternative, the plaintiffs ask to be credited as co-writers of “nearly all” of BTS‘s SWIM and awarded nearly all of the profits it has generated, plus an accounting.
The song’s other writers named as defendants are James Essien, Jamison Baken (who records as Leclair), Ryan Tedder, Tyler Spry, Sean Foreman and Kirsten Spencer, alongside Milano.
BTS’s RM and the HYBE producer Pdogg are also credited as writers of SWIM but are not named as defendants.
Also named as defendants are HYBE Co., HYBE America and HYBE Music Services, along with the BTS label Big Hit Music.
The complaint says the plaintiffs contacted the defendants before filing on July 8 in an attempt to resolve the dispute, but that they either did not respond or could not reach a resolution. The allegations have yet to be tested in court.
The suit is the third US copyright complaint filed against HYBE in two months.
In May, four Los Angeles songwriters sued HYBE, ADOR and NewJeans over the 2024 single How Sweet, which the plaintiffs said was built from a demo they had submitted and been told would not be used.
On Tuesday (July 7), the day before the SWIM complaint, New York publisher All Surface Publishing sued the same companies over NewJeans’ 2023 track ETA.
SWIM entered the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 1 on release, the group’s seventh chart-topper, while Arirang debuted atop the Billboard 200.Music Business Worldwide
