BTS's agency vows to fight U.S. copyright suit over hit single 'Swim'

BTS's chart-topping single "Swim" faces a U.S. copyright lawsuit, and its label, BigHit Music, is vowing to fight it.

Steve Cooper, Jon Sandler and Greylyn Johnson, three American songwriters, filed the complaint on Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, Billboard reported Thursday.

They say "Swim" bears substantial similarities to a demo of the same name they wrote. The song is the lead track on "Arirang", BTS's fifth studio album, and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Big Hit Music rejected the claim outright and signaled a fight in court.

"The lawsuit is nothing more than a one-sided claim by the plaintiffs," the label said Friday. "We make clear that 'Swim' is an independently created work, and we plan to respond firmly in the legal proceedings ahead."

The plaintiffs named HYBE, its U.S. arm HYBE America, BigHit Music and the writers behind "Swim," including former OneRepublic member Ryan Tedder, as defendants. They did not name BTS or its members. RM, a member of BTS, is credited as one of the song's writers but was left off the suit.

A central question in copyright cases is access: whether those accused of copying had a chance to hear the original work. The plaintiffs say they began circulating their demo in March 2025 to music industry figures, including executives at Artist Publishing Group, who they claim passed it on to some of the writers who later worked on "Swim."

The plaintiffs hired a musicologist, Alexander Stewart, to compare the two tracks. He said the songs shared a number of elements, including the hook built around the title, along with the harmony, texture, rhythm and lyrics.

In his report, Stewart wrote that the BTS song could not have been created independently and that "copying is the inescapable conclusion."

Stewart has served as an expert witness in other high-profile music cases, including failed suits against Ed Sheeran over his 2014 hit "Thinking Out Loud" and against Led Zeppelin over "Stairway to Heaven" (1971). Juries rejected the accusations in both.

BY JEONG JAE-HONG [[email protected]]