A plagiarism lawsuit is now targeting "How Sweet" — and NewJeans and ADOR are both named in it. This is NewJeans Daily Fancast — Monday, and we’re kicking off the week with a new legal filing that could land on one of the group’s biggest songs. The song, the melody, the top line — all of it is in dispute, and the fandom is not okay this morning. Let’s separate what’s alleged from what’s proven, because those are not the same thing. allkpop writes:
According to Billboard on May 8 EST, four songwriters have filed a lawsuit with the U.S. court against NewJeans and ADOR for suspicions of plagiarism in the 2024 track "How Sweet".
The four songwriters (identified as Audrey Armacost, Aidan Rodriguez, Adam Gokcebay, and Michael Campanelli) claimed that they received "an instrumental track by publisher in January 2024 and invited to submit top line lyrics and melody for consideration by NewJeans," wrote Billboard.
A U.S. lawsuit has been filed against NewJeans and ADOR over "How Sweet" — four songwriters say the first verse is significantly similar to a topline demo they submitted and were told wasn’t selected. That’s an active legal filing, not a verdict. And the timing is awful — the group is already fractured, ADOR has partial membership back, and now "How Sweet," which was supposed to be this huge comeback moment, is getting pulled into U.S. court. The songwriters aren’t just asking for damages — they want credit as contributors, and that’s where this could get complicated fast depending on how similar the melodies actually are. Courts don’t move on vibes; they move on musicological analysis. I’ll say this: the submission pipeline described in the lawsuit is completely standard industry practice, which is exactly what makes this so tricky. You send a topline, it doesn’t get selected, and then the released song sounds like yours? Courts have seen that pattern before. You’ll find links to everything we mentioned today in the show notes. If something caught your ear, that’s the best place to jump in and read a little deeper.
That’s NewJeans Daily Fancast for today. This is a Lantern Podcast.