Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
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“.
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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.
