Heize faces criticism for allegedly lacking ethical considerations in her cover of BEAST's song!

Singer Heize is scheduled to release her 8th mini-album "Last Winter" on the 7th of next month. On the 28th, she uploaded the list of all 8 tracks of the new album on her Instagram, which unexpectedly sparked controversy after its reveal.

Examining the tracklist closely, one can see that the lyricist, composer, and arranger are clearly indicated for each song. Out of the 8 songs, Heize participated in writing and composing 5 of them. However, the song that sparked controversy is "Midnight," which Heize arranged.

One of the included tracks, "Midnight," is composed by Nonsan Tiger and Choi Kyu-sung, with the original singers being the boy group BEAST (now Highlight). As the song is a cover, this has sparked controversy.

After seeing the tracklist, many netizens flocked to Heize's Instagram to comment. They believe that since Heize is singing songs previously performed by active singers, she should at least label them as "cover" or indicate "Midnight (2023)" instead of listing the tracks as if they were her own songs. They expressed that what Heize is doing is equivalent to stealing other people's songs and is lacking in business ethics.

However, some netizens have spoken out in rebuttal, arguing that covering the songs of active singers is not illegal and pointing out that since this is an official album release, there surely must have been coordination with the concerned parties. They go directly at those who accuse Heize of lacking business ethics, saying those accusers are the ones without ethics, since a simple look at the songwriting credits would reveal that it's a cover version.

The Instagram post and its comments were promptly put up for discussion on the forum "the qoo," which also sparked discussions among netizens. Some of the reactions included, "Although I can understand the fans' feelings, going there to curse someone seems a bit too much," "What's the problem here...? Reading that comment about stealing someone else's song left me speechless; I actually thought it was about plagiarism," and "In the era of capitalism, what's wrong with obtaining copyright through legitimate transactions with powerful people to release an album?"

"Aren't these kinds of things originally not labeled??" "My idol also wrote in the album introduction that they covered someone's song, so it's not specifically written on the tracklist. Plus, if they already obtained permission from the original copyright owner, what exactly is the problem?" "What's wrong with covering two songs by the same artist? And when she covered 'On the Rainy Day,' it was a song for a TV drama's OST, so why count that in?" "Why bother labeling covers... It will naturally become known to everyone."