Swing Entertainment released a statement regarding the logo of Chung Ang University’s student association.

Recently, fans noticed similarities between Kim Jae Hwan’s fan club name and logo WIN:D and Chung Ang University’s student association’s logo, also commenting that the student association used the same smiling face used on Kim Jae Hwan’s light stick.

In response to the plagiarism accusations, the student association stated, “We checked various times, and we are aware that the student association’s directions and foundations are similar to that of an idol fandom. We think that it’s unfortunate that [the concepts] coincidentally overlapped.”

In an interview, Chung Ang University’s student association president Lee In Jae responded that the student association developed the idea for the name “WIN:D” sometime in early November and that they had no intention of plagiarizing Kim Jae Hwan’s fan club name. He explained that they had found nothing during their Google search of the name and thought it was safe to use.

When the issue of plagiarism and the similarity of the icon “:D” first came up on online communities, he explained that the association determined it would not be an issue of plagiarism as it was a popularly used emoticon.

Kim Jae Hwan’s agency Swing Entertainment released a statement addressing the issue. The full statement is provided below:

Hello, This is Swing Entertainment. We are speaking regarding the similarities between Kim Jae Hwan’s official fan club name WIN:D and Chung Ang University’s 62nd Student Association’s logo. The company is aware of the issue regarding the matter fans have sent in. The word ‘WIND’ itself can be used by anyone, however, the usage of ‘WIN:D’ with the official mark and smiling logo appears to be ‘identical’ rather than ‘similar,’ so we think that this is very unfortunate. We are requesting that Chung Ang University’s 62nd Student Association officially apologize to Kim Jae Hwan’s fan club ‘WIN:D’ and that they replace the icon (WIN:D) and logo. Another aspect that we cannot understand is how it was determined that there were no issues after searching on portal sites and searching articles and images related to ‘WIN:D.’ ‘WIN:D’ is a precious fan club name decided on together by Kim Jae Hwan and countless fans, and the icon as well as the logo also hold a lot of meaning. Despite the 62nd Student Association, who represent those at the center who move ‘From the center of Korea to the center of the world,’ being aware of the issue at hand, we didn’t think they would just skip the problematic issue with words such as ‘coincidence’ and ‘unfortunate,’ so we hope that they apologize for their wrongs, correct their mistakes, and show an honest and genuine student association that can create a student society in which students can take pride in being a student of Chung Ang University. We wanted to deliver words of consolation to all the fans who felt uncomfortable with the matter at hand, and we will work continuously until an official apology and logo replacement regarding the issue mentioned has been carried out. Thank you.

Currently, Kim Jae Hwan is preparing for his comeback with his second mini album “MOMENT.” It was recently announced that Park Ji Hoon and Ha Sung Woon will be attending Kim Jae Hwan’s solo concert in order to show their support.

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