Singer IU reported to police for alleged plagiarism

Six of singer IU’s songs were reported to the police for alleged plagiarism, but the singer’s agency warned legal actions will be taken should they turn out to be false.

Local media shared on Wednesday that the singer has been reported to the Seoul Gangnam Police Station for plagiarism against six songs IU released in the past.

The six songs reported to the police were “Good Day” (2010), “Red Shoes” (2013), “Bbibbi” (2018), “pitiful” (2009), “Boo” (2009) and “Celebrity” (2021), with the claims that these songs are a result of plagiarism from local and overseas artists’ past releases. Out of the six tracks, IU was involved in writing lyrics for “Celebrity” as well as writing the lyrics and general production of “Bbibbi.”

While music copyright infringements are a civil case offense subject to complaint — meaning only the original copyright holder is allowed to sue for copyright infringements — the law firm who submitted the file on behalf of the complainant had reportedly told local media that “if the case is known to have habitually violated intellectual property rights, a third party is allowed to report the case.”

However, IU’s agency EDAM Entertainment remained on the defensive.

“We came across news articles of [IU] getting reported to the police for plagiarism […] but received no official contacts from the investigative agency and we didn’t yet check the content of the aforementioned indictment,” the agency said in an official statement released on Wednesday.

The agency did not comment further on Wednesday’s news, but warned they will resort to legal measures should the allegations turn out to be false.

IU has been subject to multiple rumors in recent years, such as flyers claiming she is “a North Korean spy using a specially trained bird to tap into Korea’s top secrets.”

“We have been aware for several months that plagiarism allegations based on false information against IU have been circulating on online communities, social media and YouTube, in addition to leaflets containing baseless rumors distributed in certain regions [offline].”

“We have filed and submitted complaints through law firm Shinwon against the allegations regarding IU being a spy, sexual harassment, defamation, spreading false information and invasion of privacy.”

BY CHO YONG-JUN [cho.yongjun1@joongang.co.kr]