For the second time in two months, NewJeans, their label ADOR and parent company HYBE are facing a copyright infringement lawsuit in the United States.
This time the disputed track is ETA, one of the singles from the K-pop group’s 2023 EP Get Up.
A New York music publisher, All Surface Publishing, alleges that ETA copied a combination of musical elements from a dance track released nearly two decades earlier, without a license.
The complaint, which you can read in full here, was filed in the US District Court for the Central District of California on Tuesday (July 7).
All Surface owns the composition Samir’s Theme, a 2005 Baltimore club track by the producer DJ Debonair Samir that is registered with the US Copyright Office.
All Surface claims ETA reproduced the track’s syncopated melodic horn line, its bass drum pattern and its rhythmic structure of sixteenth notes and rests.
The elements in ETA are “strikingly and/or substantially similar, and indeed virtually identical” to those in Samir’s Theme, according to the All Surface complaint.
Music critics flagged the resemblance when Get Up arrived in 2023, with Pitchfork and Paste each writing that ETA borrowed its horns from Samir’s Theme.
ETA was a title track from Get Up, the EP that gave NewJeans their first No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2023.
The song peaked at No. 81 on the Billboard Hot 100 and at No. 4 on the Billboard Global Excl. U.S. Songs chart.
It has since surpassed 470 million streams on Spotify.
The suit names all five NewJeans members – Minji, Hanni, Danielle, Haerin and Hyein – and alleges each co-authored ETA.
Also named are UMG Recordings, the creative agency BANA Entertainment, the publishers Sony Music Publishing, Concord Music Group and Peermusic, the producer known as 250, and Apple, among other co-writers and companies.
The complaint alleges that Apple, in partnership with the other defendants, caused ETA to be “prominently featured in Apple advertising campaigns” timed to the song’s release.
All Surface says it sent a cease-and-desist letter to the defendants in June, but no resolution was reached.
All Surface is seeking a share of the revenue and profits generated by ETA, along with an order barring further use of the song.
It alleges the infringement was willful and says it may elect statutory damages of up to USD $150,000, though the complaint puts no overall figure on the claim, leaving damages “to be established at trial.”
Representatives for HYBE did not immediately respond to MBW’s request for comment.
The filing follows a separate copyright lawsuit brought against NewJeans, HYBE and ADOR in the same California court in May.
In that case, four Los Angeles songwriters claimed the group’s 2024 single How Sweet was built from a demo they had submitted and been told would not be used.
The two complaints share a structure: both were filed in the Central District of California, and both name a brand partner over an advertising tie-in – Coca-Cola in the How Sweet case, Apple in the ETA case.
ADOR denied the How Sweet allegations, saying “no form of copying or infringement took place.”
The two suits land while NewJeans and ADOR remain entangled in a dispute of their own over the group’s future.
The five members moved to cut ties with ADOR in late 2024, after the label’s founding CEO, Min Hee-jin, was removed, and began performing as NJZ the following year.
They lost the ensuing court fight in South Korea and remain under contract to ADOR.
Three of the members – Hanni, Haerin and Hyein – have since returned to the label, while Minji has yet to decide.
Danielle, who was dropped from the group in December, will not return, and now faces further legal action from ADOR over her role in the attempted breakaway.
It is not the first time All Surface has gone to court over Samir’s Theme.
In 2024 the publisher sued Pitbull‘s label over the 2021 single I Feel Good, in a case that settled last year.Music Business Worldwide
