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.