Indie Designer Brand Accuses RIIZE’s Merchandise Of Plagiarism

An indie designer stationery and goods brand in South Korea has stepped up to accuse RIIZE merchandise of copying their design. Their heart-shaped double photo frame keyring is one of their trademark pieces. While the design appears common enough, the designer behind the brand pointed out that they had drawn the heart shape by hand, but RIIZE’s keyring dimensions mimic theirs almost perfectly.

The design on the left is that of RIIZE’s merchandise, while BitByBit‘s design is on the right. They created an overlay with both to show the similarities. The dimensions of the heart, the position of the keyring hole, and the frames are exactly the same. They posted the following notice on their account.

Amongst the goods sold at RIIZE’s Japan concert, there is one that is very similar in shape to ours… I’m sad because of that. Even though things can use a similar heart shape, the dimensions and curves can be different, but it is almost exactly the same, making me wonder if they just traced our design… I personally drew the heart myself and had a mold created specially for us. I didn’t want ours to become cookie-cutter products, so I specially got a trademark for the heart shape and two-frame design. Because the trademark is for Korea only, it is hard for us to claim the rights to products sold overseas, so there doesn’t seem like there is anything I can do… I hope the people who see this will know about it and have interest in our products. Also, I’m not targeting RIIZE…! They are a group that I support.

— BitByBit

They ended off with expressing their support for RIIZE, while calling out the designers behind RIIZE’s goods. SM Entertainment has not addressed the matter yet.