This is what happens when worlds collide

[Brandon Strader]

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/final-fantasy-14-song-claimed-as-unimaginative-the/1100-6435111/

Someone got caught copying a song  

I just wanted to make that joke in the thread title though, but it's interesting. The world of Final Fantasy collides with the once popular song from the 90s and the band everyone forgot about!

It is just really funny to me that they could actually get away with making such a similar song for FF14, claim "no I've never heard of the song before"... meanwhile in America, pretty much everyone has heard it. We've had it forced upon us, like broccoli. 

What are your thoughts though? Unlikely coincidence, or straight up theft? 

[AngelCityOutlaw]

22 minutes ago, Brandon Strader said:

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/final-fantasy-14-song-claimed-as-unimaginative-the/1100-6435111/

Someone got caught copying a song  

I just wanted to make that joke in the thread title though, but it's interesting. The world of Final Fantasy collides with the once popular song from the 90s and the band everyone forgot about!

It is just really funny to me that they could actually get away with making such a similar song for FF14, claim "no I've never heard of the song before"... meanwhile in America, pretty much everyone has heard it. We've had it forced upon us, like broccoli. 

What are your thoughts though? Unlikely coincidence, or straight up theft? 

Jesus Christ...first I find those stolen album covers and I thought it couldn't get any lower. Now there's this...

and I'll have you know I still listen to Powerman 5000. Their most recent couple of albums are awesome and what Rob Zombie wishes he still sounded like. 

[Mirby]

A complete accident.

Regarding the Music for the 2nd Phase of Containment Bay S1T7

I have read through your comments concerning the BGM for the 2nd phase of the Containment Bay S1T7 battle with Sephirot, and I would like to personally explain how the track was conceived.

As most FINAL FANTASY fans already know, Sephirot (the Fiend) is a legacy boss character who originally appeared in FINAL FANTASY VI. When considering how to portray Sephirot's return in FINAL FANTASY XIV, we decided to pay tribute to FFVI by working VI's "Battle to the Death" track into the Containment Bay S1T7's first phase, while opting to create an FFXIV original for the second.

Building upon the motif of Sephirot as a representation of the World Tree, to create this FINAL FANTASY XIV original track, we further incorporated story-driven themes of death and a warped obsession with life, all while utilizing a musical genre─industrial rock─which we believed would provide substantial emphasis to the message.

Industrial rock is a popular genre that can be further divided into numerous sub-genres. Countless songs from these genres have been released worldwide, and I have been made aware of an allegation regarding similarities between an existing track and the track created for the 2nd phase of Containment Bay S1T7. However, track composer Masayoshi Soken, has also stated to me that he was unaware of the track in question while working on this FINAL FANTASY track.

We hope that you continue to enjoy FINAL FANTASY XIV battle content.

FINAL FANTASY XIV Producer and Director, Naoki Yoshida

Source

 

[AngelCityOutlaw]

I really don't buy that this is an accident and even if it was, I have doubts the composer wouldn't catch themselves.

"When Worlds Collide" is among the most popular nu-metal/industrial rock tunes from the 90s. It still pops up in movies, games, commercials, radio etc. all the time. I mean, the vocal style, melody, rhythm and even the backing power chords in that FFXIV track sound almost completely the same. I'm normally not one to agree with most of these kinds of claims, but I'd bet that if Powerman5000 wanted to, they could probably convince a court without much effort that it's a rip-off.

While it's true that there's only so much you can do and patterns happen in genres, part of being a composer is being familiar with a wide variety of music and being able to tell if your piece is a little too close for comfort to something you're inspired by. I recently scrapped one of my tracks because I realized that it sounded like something I'd heard before, but I couldn't remember exactly what. When I shared it, people pointed out how very similar it was to "Rapid Fire" by Blue Stahli, which is a track I actually knew how to play. Then, I face-palmed hard, laughed, and got rid of it. I get the feeling this composer may have skipped that final step.

[Mirby]

He said he wasn't aware of the track. Yes, they're similar, but they're not identical.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

2 minutes ago, Mirby said:

He said he wasn't aware of the track. Yes, they're similar, but they're not identical.

He can say whatever he wants, it doesn't mean it's true.

Also, in court, they're not going to be like "Well, it's not 1:1 exactly the same track, so you can go free" because even in an instance of outright plagiarism, it's probably not going to be exactly the same.

Marvin Gaye's family won a lawsuit over "Blurred Lines" and in that case, the two tracks weren't nearly as similar as this.

[Mirby]

I'd also like to point out how, in the article Brandon linked, Powerman 5000 frontman Spider One went on to say he was just observing that it was similar, and the internet has taken it to mean a declaration of war. Which he obviously never intended with the observation.

He's 100% right with that. You're more willing to believe that Soken intentionally copied it and is lying about not being aware of the track than assuming the best of him and thinking he wasn't aware of it when he wrote the track. He might've subconsciously been thinking of it, but consciously he was not thinking of the track when he made it.

You're bringing up lawsuits and courts and Spider One admitted he was just making an observation and is going to not comment online for a bit like he was doing before this song came out. Don't think it's gonna go that far.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

Just now, Mirby said:

I'd also like to point out how, in the article Brandon linked, Powerman 5000 frontman went on to say he was just observing that it was similar, and the internet has taken it to mean a declaration of war. Which he obviously never intended with the observation.

He's 100% right with that. You're more willing to believe that Soken intentionally copied it and is lying about not being aware of the track than assuming the best of him and thinking he wasn't aware of it when he wrote the track. He might've subconsciously been thinking of it, but consciously he was not thinking of the track when he made it.

You're bringing up lawsuits and courts and Spider One admitted he was just making an observation and is going to not comment online for a bit like he was doing before this song came out. Don't think it's gonna go that far.

Yes, but I'm saying that if they were to, the idea that comments like the ones on Gamespot are proposing is that they wouldn't win because the songs are "similar", not the "same" and therefore couldn't possibly be plagiarized is ridiculous and ignorant to the fact that people have successfully sued over music that was far more likely to be an accident. 

[Chernabogue]

I am the only one shocked by the fact there's an enemy called Sephirot? (Never played the game though)

[Mirby]

In the original design sketches Nomura made for the Warring Triad in FF6, he gave them unofficial titles.

Fiend's was Sefilos (meant to be Sephirot, as was used in this game). The enemy itself is meant to be a throwback to Fiend, and the phase 1 music is, as Yoshi-P's letter mentions, an (awesome) arrangement of Battle to the Death from FF6. Phase 2's song is what has caused this storm.

[Brandon Strader]

It sounds too similar to be a coincidence, and if I was a composer lifting parts of a song from another country not expecting anyone ever to notice, I'd probably brush it off as saying "I never heard of that song before". But between the performance and the structural similarities I dunno. There's parts of the arrangement that make it sound really obvious that the composer had heard "When Worlds Collide" 

[Argle]

Wow, yeah, that sounds incredibly similar.

[Mirby]

This Reddit post explains why this may or may not work in court if it ever got to this.

[The Damned]

Sooo... we're not getting pitchforks and torches?

[Garpocalypse]

I like this game a lot and just recently got back to playing it but i'm not thrilled with some of the choices for the music in a lot of the areas of the game.  Under no circumstances should an OST mimic, no matter how closely, any overplayed pop song from a recent era. In the case of FFXIV, It completely kills the vibe that the game is trying to set up.  For this boss fight it would have been much more appropriate to have rearranged one of the tracks from 1.0 that got cut when 2.0 came out. I mean, Powerman 5000 over Epic Symphonic Viking Folk Death Power Metal?  That could have been so much more appropriate.  

And let's not forget that this POS track that somehow was actually conceived, passed Yoshida's approval and came out with the new expansion.  

If there is any merit to this track it will need to be explained to me.  :/

 

[The Damned]

I had to check hat I didn't accidentally open two youtube videos at once.

No, it's one song. One messy, terrible song. Is this one of those times where you have to listen not to the notes that are being played, but the ones that aren't being played? Because I could have done that by not watching the video.

[Brandon Strader]

I like the whimsical nature of the soundtrack, like it's just been combined from a bunch of different influences and styles without much thought given to cohesion. I kinda wonder if there's anything else on the soundtrack that is "accidentally similar" to other popular songs from the 90s  

[Hipnotyk]

It's close enough to where an app like Shazam might identify the FFXIV track as When Worlds Collide.

I'm quite familiar with PM5K (Song About Nuthin' is hilarious) due to my rebellious teenage phase from forever ago so it's nice to see them talked about.  I still use plenty of their songs in running playlists all the time as they're good for keeping my adrenaline up. 

However, it does sound like fans have taken more of an offense to the similarities than Spider One and the band, so I don't know if they'll actually pursue this in court of what.  Either way, this could get interesting.

[Garpocalypse]

I wouldn't want to see SE sued over it but I would like to see it get taken out of the game now that people are aware of it.  

Remember, there was a plagiarism lawsuit between Satriani and Coldplay that was settled out of court and that was not nearly as opaque of a case as this.  Granted that there is a lot less money involved so legal action probably wont be an issue. 

 

[Brandon Strader]

Yeah, I'd say the songs are more similar than that Coldplay/Joe Satriani, and Powerman could sue (it'd actually be pretty ironic)

But I doubt they will! They should though. I mean, when something like this happens, you have to protect yourself. 

[AngelCityOutlaw]

As I think that Reddit post pointed out, they probably wouldn't stand to gain much and there is always a chance they could lose.

If it were me, I probably wouldn't sue, honestly. I suspect the band does well for themselves probably just from royalties and licensing alone at this point, but probably not well enough that they or their label would want to spend the money on court costs. It's really not about who'd win in a lawyer fight - it's about whether or not the allegations of theft are true. The court of public opinion is stronger than ever these days and has real power to ruin lives and careers. Though they don't seem to intend to from that letter, I wouldn't be surprised if SE were "hesitant" to employ that composer again. No doubt, this will hurt his professional reputation.

Has anyone heard from Tappi Iwase since the allegations of his MGS theme being plagiarized happened?  

[Mirby]

I don't think this is hurting his rep at all especially since he's... you know, continuing to make the music for 14 and he obviously apologized. Not to mention that Spider One has since posted this, which was paraphrased in that Gamespot article in the OP.

UPDATE on the Final Fantasy music controversy.

Fascinated by the level of interest in this. Opinions range from total agreement to extreme hatred towards the subject (and me apparently)

So crazy.

The original post was a two sentence observation about a piece of music that was way too similar to be coincidence.

Since then it has been taken as some sort of declaration of war. Oh, internet...

Anyway. There's no lawsuit, there's no cry for attention or publicity. Just an observation.

Going back to my normal M.O of not participating in social media. Thanx for the fun!

See ya on the road in March/April

-Spider

Source

 

Obviously he's not going to pursue this matter further and is backpedaling a bit (since the original post was more than two sentences). He doesn't want this to go any further than it has already. I think that's a bit of a respectable thing to do, honestly. End the drama he helped begin before it escalates too much with a promise of no further action (legal or otherwise) in regards to it.

[The Coop]

This is what it sounds like when Bobby Prince does Final Fantasy music.

[AngelCityOutlaw]

1 hour ago, Mirby said:

I don't think this is hurting his rep at all especially since he's... you know, continuing to make the music for 14 and he obviously apologized. Not to mention that Spider One has since posted this, which was paraphrased in that Gamespot article in the OP.

 

 

Source

 

Obviously he's not going to pursue this matter further and is backpedaling a bit (since the original post was more than two sentences). He doesn't want this to go any further than it has already. I think that's a bit of a respectable thing to do, honestly. End the drama he helped begin before it escalates too much with a promise of no further action (legal or otherwise) in regards to it.

Again, people have had their careers go down the crapper for cases that had much more room for doubt. 

I'm not sure why you're defending the guy so much, honestly. Your entire argument for why it's "a complete accident" is because "they said so" and the band isn't suing. 

Reading around online, it seems like the big-time FF fans are clamoring for any reason they can to deny that this composer lifted this tune from PM5000. Also, the fact that he comes out and says he's never heard of it rather than "I might have heard it at some point" or something like that when the band has toured Japan numerous times and the country is basically the only place that still buys CDs is sketchy at best. Not acknowledging that you could have possibly heard a platinum selling industrial-rock tune in such a country when your song has nearly identical drums, melody, rhythm, chords and vocal style is really difficult to believe.

You can throw whatever quotes you like, but until someone can provide strong evidence for how nearly identical pieces in this case could possibly be an accident, I remain 99% convinced it's blatantly stolen. Like, I'm actually tempted to transcribe and/or overlay the two tracks to prove it.

 

[Mirby]

You can't believe I'm apparently blindly defending Soken while in the same breath appearing to blindly defend Powerman5000. Just pointing that out.

 

Yes, I admit the songs may be similar, but if Powerman 5000 obviously no longer cares about this being stolen and isn't pursuing it, why is it still such a big deal? If anyone should be pissed about this, it's them, and they're not. Not anymore.