HYBE Accused of Stealing an Artist’s Style for New Virtual Idol Group

HYBE recently announced that they will be debuting a virtual idol group called SYNDI8, only to be buried under fire. In fact, the group has so far faced accusations of copying aespa’s Karina, YouTuber Calm Man, and the stage name of SEVENTEEN’s The8. Now, another copying allegation has been raised.

Particularly, an artist with the Instagram handle @b.yo_art recently published screenshots of HYBE’s message to them regarding the SYNDI8 project, and claimed that when the artist responded asking about the payment and further details, HYBE never responded to them.

However, HYBE later announced a virtual group (SYNDI8) with an extremely similar artstyle to  @b.yo_art. Compared to what they sent @b.yo_art, HYBE has completely switched up their original sketch. 

“It must be a coincidence that the final product is completely different from the previous sketch, and ended up resembling my style, right?”, @b.yo_art wrote mockingly, before adding, “Did you work hard tracing my work? It seems that you heavily referenced it”. 

@b.yo_art’s accusation quickly gained attention among netizens, and criticisms targeting HYBE also started to pour in. However,  there were also opinions that @b.yo_art’s style was not unique, so the copying accusations are reaching. 

Responding to this, @b.yo_art published another post, saying, “What a coincidence. I know that I cannot claim that my style is unique. My illustration took inspiration from old school comics and city pop illustrations, but the company that inquired about me didn’t even reply to me when I inquired about the details of the work, right? It was a collaboration inquiry that was unilaterally rejected.”

“No matter how much I try to look on the bright side, I feel uncomfortable that the existing drawing style has been completely changed and the result is like this. Of course, they probably referenced a lot of illustrations from other people besides me. Fans asked if I worked on it and I made it clear that I absolutely did not. I wrote this just out of frustration. I am not writing this to ask you to do something. What power does an individual have?”, they also added.

So far, @b.yo_art has deleted both of the aforementioned updates, but articles about the artist’s claims are still flooded with negativity towards HYBE. 

Below are some comments from netizens in related topics: 

• HYBE is the worst
• It’s true that they switched up the style completely after ignoring the artist…
• Just compare the original sketch with the final version and it’s obvious that they copied the artist’s style and palette
• Just how many controversies has HYBE faced this year? Truely a shitty agency 
• Woah did HYBE run out of money? To blatantly steal from an artist like this?
• The controversies are really endless with HYBE huh.

Source: PC, theqoo