BTS 'Swim' Suit Ends as Three Songwriters Withdraw Claims

The three songwriters who claimed BTS' "Swim" was copied from their demo have asked a federal judge to dismiss their own lawsuit, less than four months after they filed it.

Attorneys for Steve Cooper, Jon Sandler and Greylyn Johnson made the request in a Wednesday, Nov. 4 court filing, according to Billboard. Yonhap reported Thursday that the accusers had withdrawn their claims and asked that the case be dismissed in its entirety.

The July complaint named Hybe, Hybe America and BigHit Music as defendants, along with the song's credited writers, among them former OneRepublic member Ryan Tedder. Neither BTS nor its members were listed as defendants, though RM is credited as one of the songwriters on the track.

BigHit Music had rejected the allegations as "one-sided" and maintained that "Swim" was an independent creation, vowing to respond firmly through legal proceedings.

According to Billboard, the case was still in its earliest stages, with Hybe's attorneys not yet having formally responded to it. The publication reported it was unclear from court documents whether any settlement had been reached, and that neither side immediately returned requests for comment.

The original filing laid out the accusers' theory: that they had sent copies of their demo in March 2025 "to various parties for them to consider," allegedly including executives at Artist Publishing Group, who they claimed shared it with others, including some of the writers who eventually worked on "Swim." They said a forensic musicologist they hired concluded the BTS version contained elements "unequivocally taken" from the demo.

"Swim," the lead track of BTS' fifth full-length album, "Arirang," debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 in March, becoming the group's seventh No. 1 on the main singles chart. Billboard described Tedder as a Grammy-winning hitmaker who has also written for Taylor Swift, Beyoncé and Adele.

@Kpop_Herald posted on X that the case was voluntarily dismissed in a California federal court on Nov. 4 local time, and that a separate suit in Virginia was dismissed Oct. 22.

The withdrawal leaves the record as it stood: a No. 1 single, a songwriting credit for RM, and no ruling on the merits.