Korean singer Lee Hyo-ri's ex-songwriter copied songs

A district court ordered singer Lee Hyo-ri’s former songwriter to pay her former agency 270 million won in compensation, Friday, for the damage it suffered from his illegal copying of foreign songs.

The Seoul Central District Court ruled that songwriter Lee Jae-young, who goes by the pseudonym “Bahnus,” provided plagiarized songs to Lee’s former agency CJ E&M last year.

Bahnus received 27 million won in return for supplying six songs to the agency, which were included on Lee’s fourth album. However, it turned out that the songs were not his own but ones simply downloaded from a foreign music website.

“CJ E&M suffered damage amounting to 600 million won and was sued by foreign songwriters and domestic companies on charges of copyright infringement due to the plagiarism. Lee’s agency also claims that the controversy badly affected the sale of Lee’s album, causing losses of up to 360 million won,” a judge said in the ruling.

Bahnus is also on trial on other charges.

In October, he received a jail sentence of 18 months for fraud, obstruction of business and forging documents.

The six songs he copied were “I’m back,” “Feel the same,” “Bring it back,” “Highlight,” “Geunae” (Swing), and “Memory.”

Lee Hyo-ri stopped working in June last year, right after the songs on her album were found to be plagiarized.

Since early last year, Internet users had claimed Bahnus’ songs sounded much like those of foreign bands.

The song “Bring it back,” was claimed to resemble Canadian girl band Cookie Couture’s “Boy, Bring it Back.” The song “Memory,” was also almost identical to “The Alphabet Song,” by British band Second Person.