🔗 2024-11-15 BELIFT LAB CEO Kim Tae-ho’s Exclusive Interview with OSEN Part 1

Q. What is the reason you decided to speak out personally once again regarding the similarity issue?

What I find regrettable is that what we are saying is not being conveyed well. Since we are a label under HYBE, we cannot say everything we want to say. There is that difficulty, and also what we have to explain involves very detailed parts. It is actually not easy to actively explain this issue and clearly convey our stance.

When the controversy over similarities arose after the initial concept photos were released, I thought it was a fate that a group debuting after NewJeans had to endure because NewJeans was such a successful team. I thought this issue would naturally subside once our songs and music videos were released. However, this started in April after we debuted in March, and the attacks on ILLIT have not stopped since then.

Since ILLIT was swept up in plagiarism controversies right when they should have been congratulated more than anyone for achieving incredible results after their debut, the emotional blow to the members as well as the blow to the employees working at the label was significant. I held back my words expecting this situation to be resolved to some extent, but it hasn’t been resolved at all. As these attacks intensified and the image of a “plagiarism group” was overlaid, we had no choice but to upload a clarification video. Since these problems continued to recur afterwards, I decided to come forward here because I thought we should state our position a little more actively now.

Q. What is BELIFT LAB’s stance on the claim that the NewJeans proposal and the ILLIT proposal are similar?

Former CEO Min (Min Hee-jin) brought up the similarity of the proposals again during the interrogation date for the injunction regarding voting rights she filed against HYBE last October. However, it was confirmed that Min’s side only used that content at the interrogation site and did not submit the text messages from the anonymous informant who claimed to have tipped off the similarity of the proposals, the transcripts, or the proposals themselves as evidence. She could not bring herself to submit the documents—which she recently claimed through the media were similar in design, font, and document development—as legal evidence. This is also counter-evidence that Min does not consider this issue a key issue.

Q. There are claims that the format such as PPT design and fonts are similar, and some strategies/wording (sense of kinship and longing, influencers and creators, etc.) may look similar. What is BELIFT LAB’s stance on this?

The claim regarding the similarity of the document format is even absurd. The design using text inside circles and utilizing lines is a very common PPT form used widely regardless of the industry. It is even included in the standard templates within HYBE.

The keywords “sense of kinship” and “longing” were already finalized in various documents written between April and July 2023, which is before BELIFT LAB received the NewJeans proposal (August 2023). It makes absolutely no sense timeline-wise. “Longing” is the foundation of idols. If there is an idol group that strategizes while excluding longing, that would be strange. “Sense of kinship” is an expression derived from the team’s direction of valuing communion with fans of the same generation. Is there any team among currently active idols that did not consider this part in the planning stage? They are misleading by extracting very general and common-sense words.

They say “influencer” and “creator” are the same concept, but they are completely different. You need to look at the context in which the words were used. It is organized in the ILLIT proposal as well, but the key element that decided the direction of the team ILLIT is “SUPER REAL ME,” which is also the name of their debut album. It means girls who are “incomplete” but love today. Since they debuted through an audition program, their aspects as artists might be lacking, but the direction is to make their “unprepared, raw” personality a strength—in other words, to show their “likeness to kids these days” just “as they are.”

“Creator” appeared in the stage of presenting a methodology to show their “appearance as it is” by directly filming and editing content even if they are lacking. It is a different concept from “influencer,” which means a “wannabe” existence whose influence is revealed just by showing what products/brands they use. In the NewJeans proposal as well, influencers are listed as objects of envy and wannabes, so the meaning is completely different from the “creator” used in the ILLIT proposal.

Also, regarding the document development, regardless of the field, it is basic for a strategy document to have an overview, market analysis, strategy derivation, execution plan, and numbers. Rather, it is an unusual case if it deviates from this framework. I wonder if claiming plagiarism because the composition and flow of the table of contents are similar in the girl group category of the same industry is actually more abnormal.

Q. A HYBE whistleblower said, “I really never imagined they would make it exactly the same,” isn’t this clear grounds for plagiarism?

The two documents are not the same at all. If someone says they are the same, do they become the same? Someone’s unilateral claim without basis cannot be grounds for similarity. Ultimately, isn’t the only thing used as grounds for “being exactly the same” in recent reports at the level of “using circles is exactly the same”? Circles are also in the HYBE standard PPT forms.

If you look at the images covered in the media this time, they didn’t use our actual PPT documents as they are, but Photoshopped them to look similar. They adjusted the letter spacing and such to make them look similar.

ILLIT debuted in March 2024. That document is a document that came out in 2020. If we wanted to steal Min’s brain in 2023, wouldn’t it have been much easier to copy NewJeans, which was already out? Would we dig up something from before NewJeans debuted and copy even the circles from a document created before ADOR was even formed? From our perspective, it is frustrating.

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🔗 2024-11-15 BELIFT LAB CEO Kim Tae-ho’s Exclusive Interview with OSEN Part 2

Q. You stated that the proposals for the two artists, ILLIT and NewJeans, cannot be plagiarism based on the timeline. Please explain with the clear timeline of the two artists’ proposals.

The NewJeans proposal currently being mentioned was shared with BELIFT LAB in August 2023. Before that, BELIFT LAB’s ILLIT preparation team had never seen that document.

ILLIT’s initial planning documents were already completed before August 2023, when the NewJeans proposal was delivered. In these documents, the keywords for which similarities are currently being raised externally were already all decided.

To explain the detailed timeline, the ‘Business Strategy Direction’ document came out between April and June 2023, and the ‘Rookie Girl Group Branding Strategy’ document containing ILLIT’s brand keywords and identity came out in July 2023. The document currently raised as similar externally is the ‘Rookie Girl Group Proposal’ from September 2023. This has the nature of synthesizing the documents written in April-July 2023 explained earlier, and it is a document that concretized ILLIT’s goals, target segments, content and business direction, and mid-to-long-term roadmap based on the branding strategy organized in July.

Also, some people bring up the content ‘Strategy and concepts were finalized on July 21, 2023’ from BELIFT LAB’s statement last October and make claims that blur the essence, asking if the proposal came out before the ILLIT members were finalized on September 1 through the audition program, or if the program was rigged. This is deceiving the public who do not know the idol production process well. Countless documents are created from the planning of a group to its debut, and strategy documents are also created with different roles at different times.

The statement BELIFT LAB released last October was a rebuttal to the claim by a person called an “informant” who appeared in the injunction hearing between Former CEO Min and HYBE, saying they ‘felt the “concepts” of the two teams were similar.’ Since ILLIT’s ‘concept’ was derived in the ‘Rookie Girl Group Branding Strategy’ document written in July 2023 as explained earlier, we explained in our past position that ‘strategy and concepts were finalized in July.’

Since the ILLIT proposal currently suspected of similarity externally is the September version, it contains more than just the ‘concept.’ This proposal is the ‘Rookie Girl Group Proposal’ written in September 2023, which reflects the characters and concepts of individual members and modifies/concretizes the execution plan of the strategy after the debut group was formed on September 1, while the branding strategy and concept had already been derived in July.

As explained earlier, these claims are unreasonable claims that overlook the fact that the artist production process proceeds with planning being modified and finalized repeatedly over a long period. Very naturally, the debut group was selected fairly through voting.

At the time, only 2 members were selected by voting through the program, and 4 were selected by the company. If we had rigged it, we would have said we were selecting all 6 by voting. Even then, there were many comments saying it was unusual to hold an audition and select only 2 by voting. From our perspective, we thought it was better to go with the company’s concept direction rather than selecting everyone by audition voting. We took that risk and announced that only 2 would be selected by voting.

Q. There were some critical opinions regarding the similarity controversy clarification video released by BELIFT LAB last June, citing lack of persuasiveness, mention of other artists unrelated to the issue, and inappropriateness of the sources of cited materials. What is your stance on this?

ILLIT, not long after their debut, was branded as a plagiarism group. Former CEO Min even claimed a ridiculous new plagiarism theory that we ‘copied the formula.’

The part where other artists were cited in BELIFT LAB’s video dealt with the statement “We do not think NewJeans copied the choreography movements of other artists who debuted earlier, and the reason is because of the characteristics of choreography where there are bound to be many similar movements like this,” accompanied by specific explanations.

Even now, if I turn back the clock to that time, I would upload that video exactly the same. I think I would have corrected some parts that could be misunderstood, but I think uploading the video was the right choice. I didn’t think the video would solve every situation. It is a video we uploaded thinking that negative reactions would continue.

Even then, there were many comments asking why we were causing trouble again when the talk was dying down. Many people say I am not from an entertainment background, but I have worked in film since 1992 and have done work related to entertainment for a long time. What I experienced was that entering a lull does not mean the problem is forgotten or becomes quiet, but rather it seems to imprint only the controversy up to that point on those interested in this incident. If we hadn’t done that, ILLIT’s plagiarism would have solidified as fact. I think we clearly conveyed to many people through the video that we definitely did not plagiarize, at the very least.

Q. How are the legal measures related to the similarity controversy proceeding?

Since Former CEO Min is delaying the pleadings day after day specifically regarding civil and criminal cases and delaying the lawsuit in various ways, we couldn’t wait any longer and requested the court to ‘designate a date for pleading’ this Tuesday.

BELIFT LAB submitted a complaint against Former CEO Min last June. Even knowing that a lawsuit had been filed, Former CEO Min did not accept the court’s service three times. She only received the complaint about 3 months after the lawsuit was filed. Even after that, she did not submit any materials or answers, so we additionally submitted an ‘Application for Designation of Date for Sentencing Without Pleading’ last week to prevent further delay of the lawsuit. Only then did Min’s side immediately submit a formal answer to the effect of “We are reviewing the lawsuit and will give an answer within 6 weeks.”

One more lawsuit was added this week. ILLIT’s creative director filed a complaint against Former CEO Min and other former ADOR executives regarding Min’s claims of plagiarism. If Former CEO Min is confident and sure about the plagiarism she has continuously raised, I hope she will faithfully engage in the lawsuit filed by our company.

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🔗 2024-11-15 BELIFT LAB CEO Kim Tae-ho’s Exclusive Interview with OSEN Part 3

Q. Are you saying NewJeans had absolutely no influence on the birth of ILLIT?

I think there is no team that considered debuting or debuted after NewJeans debuted that wasn’t influenced by NewJeans. I think the achievements NewJeans accomplished are truly incredible. That part must be acknowledged. Whether they were influenced to go similarly, or influenced to go differently because of it, either way, they were influenced. I think that cannot be denied. However, if you ask if there was even a single moment where we thought ‘our success will be easier if we do it like NewJeans’ in creating the debut group and setting the concept, that is absolutely not the case.

I have stated this consistently. ILLIT never copied the ideas of Former CEO Min and NewJeans. This is clear. We have this much material to prove we didn’t copy, but we can’t tell the public to read all of this. That’s why, as I said at the National Assembly audit, this issue is a matter that must be dealt with in court, and I have no choice but to say that we are providing vindication regarding this issue in court.

Q. What is your stance on the issue raised that there was discriminatory treatment within HYBE compared to NewJeans because ILLIT is a team Chairman Bang Si-hyuk directly participated in producing?

All employees know that ADOR and NewJeans have rather received full support in various aspects such as promotion and brand collaboration. The cases of all sorts of support for ADOR and NewJeans are too numerous to even list.

To give one small example among them, while artists reserve and use the shared styling room in the Yongsan building when needed, NewJeans has had a dedicated styling room since their second year of debut. HYBE employees know well whether this is discriminatory treatment or special treatment.

Q. What is the current situation of the ILLIT members?

ILLIT is actually taking a very big hit. This week is a very important period. They made a comeback and are active, and have started activities with a follow-up song. From the label’s perspective, it is the week ENHYPEN is making a comeback, but this attack came out on the day of ENHYPEN’s comeback. In this situation, it is harder to refute. Because it affects artist activities. The members are getting through this situation very bravely, so rather, the employees are being comforted by the members.

At first, of course, the members had a very hard time. They said they suffered only among themselves because they were afraid the company would worry, and told the company they were okay. Especially when the “Ignore it incident” broke out, the members were too shocked. Don’t the members know the facts accurately? They asked why they were doing this to such an extent. Did the CEO do something wrong? Did they do something wrong? It seemed they were afraid to go up on stage. Now they seem to have become tougher. We are expecting they will become very good artists if they get over this hurdle well. They have become mature. I am sorry because they don’t seem like rookies. I say this once again, but the words “Ignore it” were really never said.

One of the goals of this ILLIT activity is to clearly show what image the team ILLIT will carry in the future. Second, the controversy was so big that there was no opportunity to explain the message we wanted to convey or what kind of friends the artists are. Conversely, since ‘Magnetic’ was such a huge success, we were afraid of being trapped in the frame created by ‘Magnetic.’ The goal is to create expandability.

Q. Is there anything you wish for?

As a CEO who must primarily protect the affiliated artists, I can no longer overlook this situation where affiliated artists are suffering due to the aftermath of the dispute between HYBE and Former CEO Min. Issues like this are recurring repeatedly whenever it is time for the artist’s activities. This week is an important time for all BELIFT LAB artists. There was a comeback, and ILLIT’s follow-up song music video is released this week and they start activities. Next week, everyone is attending the awards ceremony (MAMA). Raising such nonsensical issues at a time when they need to make a comeback and be active in earnest is bad behavior based on bad intentions.

I think it should be resolved legally as soon as possible and responsibility should be taken. Even if the truth is revealed, I don’t think recovering the damage will be easy. The lives of the 5 members are at stake, and I think debuting and being active as an idol at this age means one month feels like one year. Actually, the comeback was also delayed because of this issue. Isn’t this a market where it’s not easy to recover when placed in a bad situation? I would feel less sorry if this happened because these friends had problems, but the current situation is that the members really worked hard and are upright and sincere friends, so if things don’t go well because of this issue, I don’t think I will ever feel at ease until I die.

I am most sorry to ILLIT fans. I don’t know what sin they have committed. I am grateful and sorry. Thank you for cherishing and loving ILLIT even in this turmoil.