ARIRANG spent three straight weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. It broke Spotify records on day one. And someone on X leaked songs, lyrics, concept art, and album cover images weeks before any of that happened. BigHit Music wants to find out who.
On April 9, BigHit Music, the HYBE subsidiary that serves as BTS’s label home, filed an ex parte application in the US District Court for the Northern District of California seeking permission to subpoena X Corp. for the identity of the anonymous account @jwngkcck, which operated under the display name “BTS ARIRANG LEAK.” The account allegedly distributed unreleased material from ARIRANG in early March 2026, roughly three weeks before the album’s official March 20 release. BigHit’s goal is to use the identity to pursue a civil lawsuit in South Korea for copyright and trade secret infringement.
The legal mechanism here is worth understanding. BigHit filed under 28 U.S.C. § 1782, a federal statute that allows a foreign litigant to obtain evidence from a US-based entity for use in foreign legal proceedings. US-based social media platforms like X and YouTube are only subject to subpoenas issued by US judges, which is why HYBE routinely turns to American courts when it wants to identify and sue anonymous internet users in Korea. K-Jewel 99.3 FM South Korean courts simply don’t have jurisdiction over X, which is incorporated in Nevada and headquartered in Texas. As Reuters reported, the process is specifically designed for gathering evidence for foreign court proceedings evaluated under foreign law, not US law.
If the subpoena is approved, X would be required to produce all access logs and time zone data associated with the account from January 1, 2026, through the date of response, as well as any contact information linked to the account’s financial details. There is also an urgency factor beyond typical litigation timelines: HYBE’s Head of Global Legal Affairs, Claire Shin, noted in a separate declaration that South Korean telecommunications companies purge identifying user data after 90 days under company policy, creating a narrow window to act before the trail goes cold.
BigHit’s filing framed the stakes of an album leak in commercial terms that go beyond simple piracy. “BTS and other prominent music groups invest extensive resources into planning and executing the most effective release of albums, songs, lyrics, and associated material as possible, so as to have the greatest possible impact on potential listeners and the market when the media are released,” the label’s lawyers wrote. “Unauthorized leaks severely undermine these efforts, destroying the excitement and anticipation for hearing never-before-released songs and causing substantial economic and reputational harm in the process.”
The account’s biography claimed it had “not violated any rules, no copyright, following all @x’s rules.” Its posts have since been deleted and its display name changed following copyright infringement reports submitted to X. As Digital Music News reported, X is not cooperating proactively, which is precisely why the court subpoena is necessary.
This is not the first time HYBE has deployed this approach. The company previously used the same 28 U.S.C. § 1782 statute to reveal the identity of an anonymous X account, @webelieveinbots, which had posted over 3,000 tweets since March 2025 containing allegedly defamatory statements accusing HYBE/BELIFT LAB of pressuring artists to participate in political events, mistreating artists and executives, deleting evidence, and covering up abuse. That ex parte application was granted in September. Music Business Worldwide The company has used the same route to unmask users spreading false rumors about NewJeans, SEVENTEEN, and TWS, making this a well-worn legal pathway for the company rather than a novel response.
