The entertainment company founded by Lee Soo Man finally came out in response to the plagiarism accusations about the new K-Pop band Aespa. Keep reading to find out the details and the resolution of the problem.
Regarding the rumors of plagiarism, below we have made a list of all of them to study them in more detail and later you can see the final result.
1) Concept
From the announcement of Aespa back in October and its teasers explaining the innovative concept of the group by the introduction of virtual members called "ae", netizens pointed out that this concept already existed, and it was K/DA, a virtual group that was created by Riot Games and released with a music video called POP/Stars.
SM did not comment on these rumors and went ahead with their augmented reality plan for the new girls. Below the video of K/DA.
2) Photography
Canadian artist Bryan Huynh found too many similarities between the presentation scenarios of the members of Aespa and one of his photographic works.
We found out about this accusation through the artist himself in a publication on his Instagram account where he alluded to the issue through a joke where he alleged that it was because of these things that he only supported Blackpink, tagging @aespa-official.
The photographer clarified that he does not intend anything from SM and that he is flattered that one of his favorite shots is being seen by so many millions of souls.
We also haven't had any news about it from Lee Soo Man's company yet.
3) Stage
Following the girl band's performance on November 22nd on the SBS Inkigayo stage, once again SM was accused of plagiarism but this time for the setting of the stage.
American visual artist Blake Kathryn found some really disturbing similarities between a set created by her and that of the girls and once again, no one from the company contacted her or made any statements about it.
This artist felt a little offended by the way her work was reconstructed and even expressed that she would have liked to be contacted so that she could help the stage director to better recreate the scene.
4) Famous train scene in "Black Mamba"
Of all the plagiarism accusations that Aespa targeted, this was the most prominent and obvious and also the only one with a conclusion.
The German visual artist Timo Helgert found out through his social media that an image of him had been used in the music video of the new K-Pop band and was asked if he had given permission for this.
Timo had no idea what had happened and was quite relaxed about it.
The truth is that the similarity is overwhelming between the two images.
However, and surely due to the obvious emulation of the artist's work by SM Entertainment, this issue did have a closure.
On December 22nd, the company sent a public statement on social media announcing that they had contacted the visual artist and that both parties had reached an agreement and that they respected each other's work.
Would the agreement have been economical?
All the other artists did not speak more about it on social media, we must assume that SM ran all the expenses of the case to silence rumors?
Leave us your comments.