'Are They Serious?' — BELIFT Lab Ignites Ire of Multiple Fandoms Through Controversial Rebuttal Video

On June 10th, BELIFT Lab took fans by surprise when they uploaded a 27-minute video containing their rebuttal against the plagiarism accusations thrown by Min Hee Jin, the CEO of labelmate ADOR.

Earlier this year, CEO Min sent out an in-company report to HYBE, questioning BELIFT Lab and accusing ILLIT of plagiarizing ADOR's trending girl group NewJeans, from their concept down to their choreography. The plagiarism accusations were made public after HYBE invoked an audit over ADOR's alleged attempt to take over NewJeans' management rights. However, the legal battle ended with Min Hee Jin winning and clearing her name.

In response to the accusations of Min Hee Jin that ILLIT copied NewJeans, BELIFT Lab said, "BELIFT Lab decided that it could no longer delay expressing its position after watching CEO Min Hee Jin's second press conference on May 31. Accordingly, we would like to summarize BELIFT Lab's position on CEO Min Hee Jin through text and video."

The agency added, "CEO Min used an innocent rookie group (ILLIT) as a scapegoat for her own personal gain. One of the means of putting pressure on HYBE that CEO Min chose was to disparage new groups from the same HYBE label as 'imitators' or 'fake'. This was accompanied not only by plagiarism controversy but also by unreasonable claims such as interference with activities."

"The video produced by BELIFT lab contains an analysis of the problems with CEO Min's plagiarism claim and the impact this claim will have on the overall pop culture, including K-POP, in the future. In particular, there is a clear explanation of CEO Min's unreasonableness and fictitiousness, such as the part where she used the arbitrary standard of 'production formula' to package even numerous similar cases, such as marketing activities and holiday hanbok pictorials, as if they were new creations."

However, in the video that they released, fans pointed out how the agency mentioned a number of groups.

in defense of overlapping choreo, belift lab is saying that newjean's ditto choreo resembles nmixx's love me like this choreo. yet ditto was released before love me like this...?

ditto release date: december 19, 2022
lmlt release date: march 20, 2023#nmixx #jyp #nswer pic.twitter.com/qbQoyuPDFU
— NewJeans new MV June 17 (@rkvjeans) June 10, 2024

Belift Lab clarifies that they have a "NOT" list of groups they will not brand their own group after:

NJ - object of adult fantasies even though they are teenager#BLACKPINK - the perfect celebrity you can't get to
IVE - a doll and princess girls make people jealous pic.twitter.com/vbm86vBsFI
— 𖤐 (@GhoulPinks) June 10, 2024

The way they’re using fanmade vids is crazy 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/DkJE3Wtds3
— Ldsphu+ (@Ldsphu2) June 10, 2024

The video and its contents instantly went viral all over the internet, receiving mainly negative comments from fans. In South Korea, it is also a hot topic on multiple online communities, with Korean netizens commenting:

Are they serious???
This company is really stupid ㅜㅜ Why don’t they know that this makes them even more unpopular?
I'm surprised that the agency is making such an official statement.
This isn't helping ILLIT at all.
Self-destructing...
Why are you dragging BLACKPINK with you?
The ChanBaekXi thing got buried.
Protect NewJeans and ADOR!
The NMIXX choreography is really different. Why are they even dragging them?
Wow, they say they are suing malicious commenters, but they are throwing NewJeans as prey to the malicious commenters.
Just stay still, you idiot.
Not IVE getting involved again.
If I was ILLIT fan, I would beg you to shut up.
It really feels like a form of self-destruction....
This is my first time seeing an agency kill itself.
Why is an agency behaving like an anti ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ
It's amazing how things can get uglier here.
Someone already reported this to JYP ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
ILLIT's image is an abyss now.
Is today a competition day to see who is more annoying?