Protection of Intellectual Property Rights from the Perspective of the Business Competition Supervisory Commission: A Comparative Analysis of Indonesia and Korea in the Case Study of Illit’s Plagiarism Against NewJeans
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33751/jhss.v10i2.173Keywords:
musician imitation, unfair business competition, unfair competition, ILLIT vs NewJeans, comparative law of Indonesia and South KoreaAbstract
The contemporary music industry has transformed into an ecosystem based on concepts, visual identity, and brand image with high economic value. The practice of musician imitation, including the imitation of group concepts, choreography, visual style, and brand identity, is difficult to address under conventional copyright law, which protects only expression and not ideas. The main legal issue is whether the imitation of creative concepts that are not protected by copyright can be categorized as unfair business competition. This study uses a normative legal research method with statutory, conceptual, case, and comparative approaches. The results show that South Korea, through the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (UCPA) and the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act (MRFTA), has adopted a progressive legal framework that protects “substantial investment and effort” in creating brand identity, as demonstrated in the Seoul Court decision on the ILLIT vs NewJeans dispute in February 2026, which fulfilled three elements of unfair competition: confusion, parasitic copying, and misappropriation of trade secrets. In contrast, Indonesia still relies on a narrow copyright approach under Law No. 28 of 2014, Article 41, and Law No. 5 of 1999 on Business Competition, which has not specifically regulated concept imitation. This study recommends the reformulation of Law No. 5 of 1999, the strengthening of the role of the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU), and the preparation of plagiarism guidelines as a form of preventive protection for Indonesian musicians.
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