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On Thursday, May 2, netizens began to speculate that the K-pop girl group sub-unit, LOONA 1/3's official Spotify account was hacked. This was due to the sudden change in the account's description.
While Spotify artists' bios usually revolve around describing the artist, the kind of music they make, etc., the newly changed bio of LOONA 1/3 stood out to fans immediately.
The description warned fans against streaming the group's music since the money gained through the streams would reach the group's former agency, BlockBerryCreative, otherwise known as BBC. Though all the 12 members of LOONA have left the agency after winning a lawsuit against BBC for several mistreatment issues, netizens suspected that the royalties of LOONA's songs might still go to BBC.
Given that this money can be allegedly used by the company to file lawsuits against the LOONA members, fans have been warning each other not to stream any LOONA songs under Spotify or any other streaming platforms. Instead, fans have been listening to the girl group's songs by downloading them as MP3 files.
LOONA 1/3's official Spotify account allegedly gets hacked advising fans not to stream their music
On May 2, LOONA 1/3's Spotify description was changed to the following—
"DO NOT STREAM ANYTHING HERE EXCEPT FOR You and Me Together. YOU ARE GIVING BBC MONEY TO MAKE LAWSUIT AGAINST THE GIRLS."
Additionally, the Spotify account has also re-released the LOONA 1/3's track, You and Me Together under other copyrights that don't belong to BlockBerryCreative.
The song is registered under RERE Release, which is claimed to be based in Poland. Therefore, netizens believe that the incident was planned to stand in solidarity with the LOONA members and protect them from BBC.
LOONA 1/3 is a four-member sub-unit under the K-pop girl group, LOONA. The sub-unit was formed in 2017 and consisted of the members HeeJin, HyunJin, HaSeul, and ViVi. While the sub-unit's debut was well-received by the masses, the group didn't make any active releases after their albums Love & Live and Love & Evil in 2017.
This was also due to the lawsuit that broke out between the 12 LOONA members and their agency, BlockBeeryCreative. In November 2022, following a few discrepancies that arose between Chuu and her agency, BlockBerryCreative, the idol was removed from the agency for using violent language and misuse of power, according to BBC.
Before, her official removal, Chuu and BBC underwent a lawsuit where she addressed the unfair split of her music's profits, and also eventually won the same. However, even after her departure, BBC tried to prevent the idol from being promoted or working as an artist in South Korea, though they didn't succeed with the same.
Soon after Chuu's departure, fans pointed out the unfair conditions of the other LOONA members under BBC.
All the members eventually went under a lawsuit with BlockBerryCreative to terminate their exclusive contract with the agency. In June 2023, it was announced that all LOONA members were successfully out of the agency and the idols are housed under different agencies.
