Plagiarism

Shaun Yu, a Singaporean artist, recently released an album in Taiwan that contained an instrumental version of Tori no Uta (the theme song of Air) labelled as an original composition entitled Melody. When confronted with this, the producer, YesAsia, claimed that they had purchased the distribution right from Key/Visual Art’s. Key promptly denied this and issued a statement on their website. They demand an online apology and the inclusion of the original composer’s name, Shinji Orito, in the credits. In exchange, they will not ask for monetary compensation.

However, the composer of the other song (Tenshi no Kyujitsu by Hiroyuki Toushima) that was plagarized by the same CD is not so forgiving. According to his personal site, he is very pissed off with the company’s dishonest claim that it had obtained permission for the distribution of the song and he is discussing his rights with his attorney.

Here’s a sample of “Melody“.

This is nothing new. A lot of Taiwanese theme songs rip-off obscure Japanese game and anime music. It’s just their luck that Air wasn’t that obscure.