Mamamoo x Plagiarism : Let's take a look

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

[Pann] Mamamoo's songs suspected of plagiarism

1. Mamamoo - You're the Best

ㄴ 1 min 6 sec~ mark

ㄴ 50 sec~ mark

2. Mamamoo - 1cm of Pride (I'm pretty sure these are on purpose as a parody)

ㄴ Melody

ㄴ 10 sec~ guitar sound

ㄴ 20 sec~ piano sound

ㄴ 8 sec~ guitar sound



3. Album jacket picture (AKA the one that is really suspicious)

Author Kim Eun Joo wrote on her blog that she was informed about a group she didn't know using her title, typography, and colors for their album jacket picture. The title of her book is also '1 cm'.

--

1. [+122, -17] Mamamoo fans always make excuses, "It's not our group's fault but the company's fault~~~ they're good singers and that's all that matters~~~"
2. [+90, -5] 1cm is a straight up parody
3. [+68, -6] Is the one downvote from a Mamamoo fan? ㅋㅋㅋ
4. [+34, -3] I bet people will let this get buried because it's Mamamoo ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ people are so much more forgiving towards this group~
5. [+31, -4] Please don't shield this
6. [+23, -1] It's unfair how people are strict towards other idols but forgiving towards Mamamoo
7. [+22, -18] But aren't the heels a bit of a stretch...? You see that kind of art in lots of books and magazines..
8. [+20, -1] It's true that people are more forgiving of Mamamoo though ㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ Imagine if this happened to AOA, SNSD, or T-ara ㅋㅋㅋ they'd get tons of hate
9. [+20, -2] This is Mamamoo so it'll probably be passed over ㅋㅋㅋㅋ
10. [+13, -1] Whatever, it's going to get buried because it's Mamamoo ㅋㅋ
11. [+11, -1] As a fan, I do think it's plagiarized...
12. [+9, -2] It'll be buried fast~ it's Mamamoo, after all, people are super f*cking forgiving about them

Netizens hit MAMAMOO with plagiarism accusations that seem to be bunk

I typically don’t get involved in the constant plagiarism accusations that the K-pop world obsesses over, mainly because I don’t know enough about what actually constitutes it. Somehow, though, that neutral stance makes me more reasonable than most netizens by default, as people love nothing more to endlessly speculate on supposed copycats when they basically know the same amount as me on the issue: shit.

Over the years, though, if there’s one rule I learned to memorize it’s that soundalikes are not plagiarism in and of itself. Thus, while I identified the clear Dr. Dre influence on MAMAMOO‘s “Pride Of 1 CM” literally minutes after it was released (instead of three weeks later), my initial reaction wasn’t to cry plagiarism, but to rather just enjoy the soundalike (and borderline parody anyway) and move on.

Others felt differently, however, as a Pann post has gone up accusing the song of biting Eminem‘s “Under The Influence” and Dr. Dre‘s “The Next Episode“, “Still D.R.E.“, and “Forgot About Dre” (no “The Real Slim Shady“?). Additionally, they dragged “You’re The Best” into it by comparing it to Aqua‘s “Happy Boys And Girls“.

—–

I listened to all the examples given, and in my uninformed opinion it did sound similar but fell well short of plagiarism, much less anything legally actionable. But like I said, I don’t actually know shit, just what I read, so I asked KPOPALYPSE about it instead.

KPOPALYPSE has spent a lot of time analyzing and explaining plagiarism accusations before and at length, and here is what he said about these allegations (in tweets cause I’m too lazy to transcribe everything).

@asianjunkiecom #1. Melody is the same but only for a bar and a half. You can't copyright a "melodic phrase".
— KPOPALYPSE! (@kpopalypse) March 1, 2016

@asianjunkiecom needs to be a longer amount of content to be legally actionable. Eight bars at least.
— KPOPALYPSE! (@kpopalypse) March 1, 2016

@asianjunkiecom #2 Mamamoo melody – clearly an Eminem tribute on purpose. Arguably fair use under satire rules. Also only a phrase.
— KPOPALYPSE! (@kpopalypse) March 1, 2016

@asianjunkiecom #2 other stuff – you can't copyright a sound. Otherwise all modern rock music would be illegal.
— KPOPALYPSE! (@kpopalypse) March 1, 2016

@asianjunkiecom Album jacket isn't legally actionable if the original didn't trademark the image (like say, the Rolling Stones' tongue logo)
— KPOPALYPSE! (@kpopalypse) March 1, 2016

But hey, remember last time when netizens were so sure that 4Minute‘s “Crazy” ripped off Knife Mode‘s “Boss Party“? That worked out well.

Netizenbuzz, pann, asianjunkie
Mamamoo, Erik48271, patches862, DrDreVEVO

Comments

[typhlogirl.livejournal.com]

OP I just want to say that I admire your dedication to your faves!

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

XD the community is a bit dead so... a girl gotta do what a girl gotta do

[fabulousdoll.livejournal.com]

hahaha yep, it doesn't have much activity. I wanted to post a thing but I couldn't find a source that it wasn't allkpop (is it banned? still didn't want to use it).

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

yep, Allkpop is still banned

[pikapika217.livejournal.com]

OMG at netizen 8 placing AOA next to SNSD, the come-up is REAL!

[innnnnnnnn2.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't call it plagiarism, but all I could hear in the beat in that 1cm song was very early 2000s DRE. I just chose to write it off as a musical influence. Plagiarism really confuses me tbh; We all agree that there's nothing that is truly original and all art is inspired by things that already exist. At what point does taking inspiration from someone else's sound become plagiarism (e.g Primary's scandal- inspiration or plagiarism)?

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

"Talle rthan you" is a parody so I'm pretty sure the similarities are intentional, one would have to be dumb to be that obvious especially since Dre is not a nobody but the cover art is a lot more problematic

[jeliza]

Using typography as the heel of a shoe has been done before about a zillion times. If I pulled my old design history books out of the closet, I could definitely find an example from the 1950s, and probably earlier, and the color scheme is incredibly basic.

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

I'm a moomoo so I'm just like meh but I can see why people are trying
if it was just the design, or just the title, oh well
but it's several elements at once, colors, design, title (since the bookis called 1cm even if that's not exactly the title of the song)... so I get why people complain about it

The Dr Dre similarities are intentional and the Aqua ones are pure fiction so imo the cover art is the only one that could make sense

[4minutesluts.livejournal.com]

the thing is that it's basically just a gradient between inspiration/unoriginality/plagiarism, and the only hard cutoff is the legal definition of plagiarism, which has to be pretty much straight up 1:1 copying of a significant segment of a song. South Korea/kpop has developed this weird complex about plagiarism which serves absolutely no purpose other than an avenue to attack artists you don't like, and is rarely meaningful. Lee Hyori's old plagiarism case was a very cut and dried example where the producer obviously just straight up copied pretty much every song on the album, there's very few since then that have been anything like that (Primary's was pretty bad though iirc)

[nekokonneko.livejournal.com]

primary had a plagiarism scandal?

[4minutesluts.livejournal.com]

yeah, he ended up officially crediting a Dutch singer's producers for it (Caro Emerald) and the funny thing was that I think most people ended up liking the originals more than his copies, or at least liked her other work

[froggster.livejournal.com]

Caro is amazing. (and her interviews when the whole thing happened were funny)

[fabulousdoll.livejournal.com]

Oh s**t! OP, you did it! lol
I'm not going to comment about the music because eveytime there is something about plagiarism I don't get it, not because it doesn't sound similar but the opposite, that all songs sound the same to me xD

While using text/numbers as part of the heel is nothing new, it's really sketchy that the book is called the same and it's exactly a red shoe with a black text as heel.

[leopolitan.livejournal.com]

this is so obviously just because theyre finally popular lol oh well plagiarism scandals are like a rite of initiation for groups

and the album jacket design seems like nothing tbh thats a really generic design...like i thought of the devil wears prada and im sure theres other things

[elimoum.livejournal.com]

Aqua, really? I don't hear it, and I grew up with that group.. I mean, there is maybe 3 seconds where the singing style is the same? But then mamamoo starts their chorus and Aqua has the dude rapping.. Maybe I'm missing something? But for now I don't hear it

[4minutesluts.livejournal.com]

so, which boy group fandom did they piss off?

[redgreendress.livejournal.com]

lol mte this is such a reach

[musicnkisses.livejournal.com]

Ya'll do realise that if they did sample all of the those Dre songs then they have to pay for it? I don't think 'parody' is gonna fly especially with a song produced outside of the jurisdiction of US plagiarism laws.

[petecarl.livejournal.com]

I don't really hear it for the Aqua. maybe a bit of inspiration, but it's def not plagiarism. i don't care about the other one to listen. just here for my faves, Aqua.

[aleksu7.livejournal.com]

loool. Eehh, nope.

The reaching is real in this one.

[frankoceans.livejournal.com]

the plagiarism of dr dre is so obvious tho

of course the fans are gonna say is "satire"

wasn't the song for sale and streaming? that's taking others people's work and making money out of it

[frankoceans.livejournal.com]

i don't follow the group closely, so i wouldn't know for sure, but i remember seeing it on the melon chart at some point

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

Satire and parody and 2 vastly different thing though

[frankoceans.livejournal.com]

i think my point stands wether it was satire or a parody, it's still not right and it doesn't erase that whoever was behind that song they plagiarized dr. dre, in my opinion

[thatwitchyshit.livejournal.com]

The music industry is inherently incestuous, when knetizens cry plagiarism they don't seem to know the vast amount of it that goes on in Western music (I mean, why would they). If they claim that xyz sounds like a Britney Spears song, it might surprise them that that Britney Spears song is probably sampling something from the 80s.

I'm not saying that accounts of actual ripping off don't happen, they surely do. The line between plagiarism and homage is toed constantly. Copywright law in music is pretty new still, Blurred Lines is a recent lawsuit that got a lot of media attention.

Korean music has been heavily influenced by the west out of necessity, their traditional music is very different than the Western Top 40 Pop music that took a lot of the world by storm in the 60s and 80s. They didn't have a hip-hop scene, so when they want to do their own hip hop, who do they have to turn to? It's possible to make your own beats, and lots do, but just by having your only exposure to it being American is gonna make a lot of accidental soundalikes happen. Or not so accidental, probably.

[benihime99.livejournal.com]

It's been done before to other group, usually when they start to be successful
It's like being fridayd in japan, that's when you know you're relevant