The person behind “BTS ARIRANG LEAK” may be about to discover one of the more uncomfortable realities of the internet: anonymous on X does not necessarily mean anonymous in court.
Big Hit Music has received approval from a U.S. federal court to pursue discovery from X as it attempts to identify the person behind an account accused of leaking material from BTS’ ARIRANG before the album was released. While this does not mean Big Hit has won a lawsuit against the alleged leaker—in fact, it doesn’t even necessarily mean Big Hit knows who that person is yet—it clears one of the biggest obstacles standing between an anonymous social media account and an actual defendant with a name.
And this could become an important case well beyond K-pop.
What If X Doesn’t Actually Know Who the Person Is?
The account appeared ahead of ARIRANG’s March release under the extremely subtle name “BTS ARIRANG LEAK.” According to Big Hit’s U.S. filing, the X account used the handle @jwngkcck and allegedly published unreleased BTS material before the album officially arrived.
Big Hit says the leaked material included unreleased sound recordings and other confidential album material, while reports surrounding the case have also described leaked lyrics, concept materials and cover imagery. The company argues that the releases caused reputational and monetary harm, potentially interfering with product sales and marketing surrounding one of the biggest album campaigns of the year.
And that’s an important distinction when talking about leaks. An album leak isn’t simply an annoying spoiler for fans. A major release can involve millions of dollars in recording, physical production, music videos, advertising, distribution, merchandise and carefully timed promotional campaigns. Someone obtaining confidential material and releasing it ahead of schedule can potentially interfere with intellectual property rights and commercially sensitive information.
Big Hit has indicated that potential claims could include copyright infringement, trade-secret violations, misappropriation and breach of confidentiality obligations, among other causes of action.
There was just one rather fundamental problem: Who do you sue when you don’t know who BTS ARIRANG LEAK actually is?
Big Hit Wants More Than an Email Address
This is where the American discovery process becomes important.
Big Hit originally went to federal court in California under 28 U.S.C. §1782, a U.S. law that allows an interested party to seek evidence located in the United States for use in foreign legal proceedings. The logic is relatively straightforward. Big Hit intends to pursue legal action in South Korea, but X is an American company holding information that a Korean court cannot simply order it to produce in the same way a U.S. federal court can.
The process subsequently shifted to Texas following jurisdictional complications surrounding X’s relocation of its headquarters. A federal court in the Western District of Texas has now granted Big Hit’s discovery request, allowing the company to seek records from X that could identify whoever created or operated the account.
And Big Hit is seeking considerably more than whatever name someone typed into an X profile.
The requested information reportedly includes the operator’s name, address, email address, phone number, access logs and IP addresses, as well as information associated with registered payment methods. Taken together, those records could potentially transform a pseudonymous account into an identifiable person.
A fake username doesn’t necessarily make the digital infrastructure surrounding an account fake. Someone can call themselves BTS ARIRANG LEAK, but they may still have logged in from an identifiable IP address, registered with an email account connected to them, provided billing information or left some other digital trail.
What if X Doesn’t Actually Know Who the Person Is?
This is where things become more complicated. A judge giving Big Hit permission to obtain information does not guarantee that X possesses enough information to identify the account operator.
Someone deliberately attempting to remain anonymous could have used a throwaway email address, avoided providing their real name, never registered a payment method and taken additional steps to conceal their location. X cannot turn over information it never collected or no longer retains.
But even incomplete information could potentially create another lead. An IP address could point investigators toward an internet service provider. An email address could lead to another technology company holding additional account information. Payment records could potentially provide another connection to a real identity.
So instead of imagining this as one magical subpoena that produces someone’s passport and home address, think of it as a chain: X account → email, IP or payment information → another service provider → potentially an identifiable person.
Whether that chain exists in this particular case remains to be seen.
Could X Simply Refuse?
The court’s approval also doesn’t mean X has already handed everything over. A company receiving a subpoena can potentially object to particular requests or ask the court to modify or quash them if it believes they are legally improper, excessively broad or burdensome.
We’ve already seen that dynamic in previous HYBE cases. In a 2025 case involving TWS member Hanjin, a U.S. federal court allowed HYBE and Pledis to subpoena X and Google for information that could identify anonymous users. The court specifically noted that its approval did not prevent X, Google or the affected users from later challenging or seeking modifications to the subpoenas.
Likewise, in a case involving SEVENTEEN, X did not oppose HYBE’s initial discovery application but reserved its rights concerning the actual subpoena and sought protections governing how information would be handled.
So there is an important difference between “Big Hit has received permission to ask X for the information” and “X has handed Big Hit the identity of the leaker.”
Right now, we’re somewhere between those two points.
HYBE Has Used American Courts to Unmask Anonymous Accounts Before
And this isn’t HYBE’s first trip to an American courthouse looking for the person behind an anonymous social media account.
In 2024, HYBE asked a U.S. court to help identify the operator of @guiltyarchive, an X account it accused of publishing defamatory statements and engaging in harassment. The company sought the information for potential proceedings in South Korea.
HYBE and Pledis subsequently pursued similar discovery involving anonymous accounts accused of targeting SEVENTEEN and TWS. U.S. federal courts granted discovery applications allowing the companies to seek identifying information from American technology platforms including X and Google.
That means Big Hit isn’t inventing a legal strategy from scratch with ARIRANG. There is already a roadmap for using American discovery to identify anonymous users before pursuing substantive litigation elsewhere.
The ARIRANG case, however, is particularly interesting because this isn’t primarily an anonymous-defamation dispute. It involves allegations surrounding the unauthorized release of commercially valuable, unreleased music and confidential materials from one of the world’s biggest recording acts.
Where Would the Actual Lawsuit Happen?
Most likely, South Korea.
The easiest way to understand the current American proceeding is that the United States is primarily where Big Hit is attempting to get the evidence, while South Korea is where it may ultimately use the evidence.
Big Hit has indicated that it intends to pursue civil litigation in Korea once the account operator is identified. Depending on the facts, potential claims could involve copyright, trade secrets and confidentiality obligations.
There is one intriguing wildcard, however: What happens if the person behind the account turns out to live in the United States—or somewhere else entirely?
The answer could depend on who operated the account, where the leak originated, where the person lives, how they obtained the material and which laws apply. Big Hit’s filings leave open the possibility of proceedings in other jurisdictions where appropriate.
That is one reason international leaks can become legally complicated very quickly. The artist may be Korean, the social media platform may be American, the person leaking the material could live in a third country, and the resulting material can spread globally within minutes.
Why the BTS case could matter beyond K-pop
It would be premature to call this a landmark case. Big Hit still needs to obtain useful information from X, identify the correct person, establish that person’s connection to the leaks, file substantive claims and ultimately prove them. There are several very large “ifs” between today’s discovery order and a successful judgment.
But if Big Hit successfully travels that entire road—from anonymous X account, through U.S. discovery, to identification and ultimately a successful lawsuit—it could provide a very visible cross-border roadmap for entertainment companies confronting leaks.
And this problem is certainly not exclusive to K-pop.
Western artists have spent years dealing with unreleased songs being stolen, traded, sold and uploaded online. The global nature of social media has made enforcement particularly difficult because someone in one country can obtain intellectual property belonging to an artist in another, upload it through a platform headquartered somewhere else and hide behind an anonymous username.
Big Hit’s increasingly aggressive use of American discovery demonstrates that entertainment companies have options beyond sending takedown notices and hoping the leaker disappears. They can potentially use courts in the country where the technology company operates to follow the digital trail, identify the person responsible and then pursue that individual in the appropriate jurisdiction.
That’s why what happens next in the ARIRANG case is worth watching.
The eventual lesson for leakers could be remarkably simple: your username can be fake, but your legal problems can still be very real.
