Coincidence or rip-off? It’s the question everyone asks when it’s discovered that two songs sound a little bit too similar comfort.
And the jury is still out whether the increasing frequency of discoveries is because it’s getting harder to make original music, or because the internet has made access to a wide variety of music easier is up for debate.
There’s countless examples across music (some of which are handily gathered here) and with the internet acting as a storage space that never really expires, its entirely possible for an artist to plagiarise something from anywhere in the world from conceivably any point in time, but by the same token, sooner or later they’re going to get found out.
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According to the latest uproar, pop boy band One Direction have ripped off US punk band New Found Glory on their new ing ‘Steal My Girl’.
Chad Gilbert, the guitarist with New Found Glory, accused the pop group of lifting the piano riff from New Found Glory’s 2006 single “It’s Not Your Fault”, as FasterLouder reports.
Gilbert took to Twitter to air his grievances against the group, and asking for a cut off the song’s revenue which has predictably inciting the world’s Onedirectioners to declare online war.
Props to the @onedirection "steal my girl" single for reworking the "it's not your fault" piano part into a top 40 single. Let me get a cut
— Chad Gilbert (@XChadballX) September 29, 2014
Someone has done us all a favour and meshed the songs together on Youtube for a side-by-side comparison. You can have a listen below and make up your own mind.
It’s just the latest in a long list of musical misappropriation over the past few years.
A year ago Daft Punk and their song ‘Get Lucky’ was accussed of being a rip off of ‘Robot Dance’, the work of South Korean guitar shredder and YouTube sensation, Zack Kim Yong Woon.
More recently, local heroes Tame Impala found themselves in hot water after their signature hit ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards’ was found to have remarkable similarities to an obscure song – ‘Océano’ – the lead single and title track of then-14-year-old Argentinian pop star Pablo Ruiz’s third album of the same name, released in 1989.
