Belift Lab, a subsidiary under HYBE, is facing serious allegations of plagiarism after a leaked report revealed similarities between their new girl group ILLIT and the concept of NewJeans, a popular group managed by ADOR, another HYBE label. This controversy arose after news outlet Hankyeore disclosed two reports on November 11, 2024—one detailing Belift Lab’s plans for ILLIT and another focusing on NewJeans. Despite the three-year gap between the two groups, both reports share remarkably similar designs and marketing language, leading to accusations of copying.

Similar Designs and Keywords

According to Hankyeore, both the ILLIT and NewJeans reports used strikingly similar visual designs, despite not following a universal HYBE template. Min Hee Jin, NewJeans’ creative director, had previously explained in May 2020 that she designed the NewJeans report using Keynote and had tailored the graphics herself. Although HYBE provides report and presentation templates for each of its labels, each template is uniquely customized for specific labels, meaning that Belift Lab—ILLIT’s managing label—would not normally have access to ADOR’s design files. However, Hankyeore confirmed that Min Hee Jin’s report was shared with Belift Lab at HYBE’s request.

In addition to design, the language and keywords used in both reports show significant overlap. NewJeans’ report suggested that the group should foster a “sense of kinship (dongjilgam)” and a “sense of yearning (donggyungshim)” to create a unique connection with fans. ILLIT’s report echoed these exact phrases, along with similar language to position ILLIT as an influence on youth lifestyle, sparking further accusations of direct copying.

Public Reaction and Criticism

These revelations have led to strong reactions from fans and netizens, many of whom expressed frustration over Belift Lab’s approach. Here are some of the comments from online platform theqoo:

“This is similar to copying bits and pieces of a thesis and re-arranging it. But they really stole it without any conscience.”

“Wow, do they not have any pride? LOL. Isn’t it so familiar how they’re just taking it and using it?”

“They even copied the PPT. Crazy, f*ck, even college students wouldn’t copy things to that extent.”

“They really used stole the entire template.”

“Crazy, they stole everything.”

“So shameless.”

“HYBE pulled a HYBE, not surprised.”

With netizens showing mounting frustration, these accusations have brought attention to the lack of boundaries between the creative divisions within HYBE and raised questions about intellectual property protection between labels.

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