Deadlines/Brief

Music videos are so 80s/90s, right? They belong with the era when MTV screened wall-to-wall vids instead of 'reality' TV? Try telling that to the millions who bought Gangnam Style; were they really simply loving the music? 1.6bn (and still climbing) have viewed the video on YT, not to mention the many re-makes (school eg, eg2), viral ads + celeb link-ups (even political protest in Seoul) - and it doesn't matter how legit it is, this nightmare for daydream Beliebers is making a lot of money, even from the parodies + dislikes. All this for a simple dance track that wouldn't have sounded out of place in 1990 ... but had a fun vid. This meme itself was soon displaced by the Harlem Shake. Music vids even cause diseases it seems!
This blog explores every aspect of this most postmodern of media formats, including other print-based promo tools used by the industry, its fast-changing nature, + how fans/audiences create/interact. Posts are primarily written with Media students/educators in mind. Please acknowledge the blog author if using any resources from this blog - Mr Dave Burrowes

Saturday 19 October 2013

Music video plagiarism? Katy Perry allegations

Perry's doing a Roaring trade...
Seeking to justify any music as truly original or groundbreaking quickly becomes problematic when 'influences' are taken into account. Postmodern theory posits that originality is an illusory concept and that remixing existing ideas is all we can aspire to. For the music video, arguably the most magpie-like media format of all, does the common element of intertextuality render arguments about plagiarism moot? Aren't the bulk of videos heavily laden with genre signifiers laid down in previous videos?

What to make then of the very specific claims against Katy Perry, accused of both ripping off a song and a video? There have been many, many court cases over one artist 'stealing' the musical ideas from existing tracks, but I've never heard of a case of video plagiarism before - if you have, let me know!

Sean Michaels writes:
Katy Perry has been accused of plagiarising both the melody and the video for her new single, Roar. Pop fans have drawn similarities between Perry's recent releases and works by Sara Bareilles and Dillon Francis.
...
... as the Daily Swarm observed, moombahton DJ Dillon Francis has begun clamouring about the resemblance between Roar's lyric video and his own clip for the track Messages. Released through Diplo's Mad Decent label, Messages has a video built out of text bubbles, emoji and other trappings of modern instant messaging. The brand new video for Roar uses the same technique.

No comments: