Sephirot Theme ( Phase 2 ) sound familiar?

They are very very similar (at the beginning at least), but I trust Soken wasn't aware. I see this all the time, and the whole music plagiarism thing is such a weird subject. I'm no virtuoso, but I've written quite a few songs, and most of them I have some acquaintance going "oh hey, this sounds just like [obscure band #3109]"! And sure enough I check them out, having genuinely never heard the song before, and what do you know, it's the same - instrumentation and all almost (once I'd seemingly ripped off a christmas carol...). And then you get unfortunate situations like this where coincidentally they hit very close to the mark. And yes, I completely believe Soken when he says he wasn't aware of it. It's like Never Gonna Give You Up + Robo's Theme from Chrono Trigger. There's so much music out there that in most cases such as these I'm inclined to believe there was no plagiaristic (is that a word?) intent.


I'm also kind of surprised at the amount of people coming out of the woodwork on here bashing Soken for older works too. I'm sure several of his tracks are intended as homages, but that doesn't make them rip-offs. For yet another comparison, it's like people calling Quentin Tarantino a plagiarist for his collages of old-school film references.

I find humor if they stole for square enix and they tried make look like over way around

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Originally Posted by Savagelf

I find humor if they stole for square enix and they tried make look like over way around

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What? Unless im stupid and cant read what you've typed, how on earth could they have stolen the song from SE lol.

Do you know what you're talking about?

I'm sitting in my media law class right now, and it occurs to me that, even if Powerhouse 5000 chooses not to sue, their public statement could potentially bite them in the butt. If SE/Sokken felt the need to and could prove that Sokken did not violate copyright law, they could potentially sue Powerhouse 5000 for defamation.

A highly unlikely situation, I know, considering the complexity of both copyright and defamation cases in general (and I honestly don't think SE's reputation will be harmed enough to be provable/significant), but and interesting thought, none the less.

Why is it hard to believe Soken has never heard a song from a band i only just heard about yesterday?

Well, if it comes down to a legal dispute, I'm more than confident that Square Enix Holdings, Ltd. will settle the dispute out of court. This reminds me of the whole Vanilla Ice debacle. Anywho, personally, there's a more pressing matter in regards to Sephirot; mainly their concept of 'Normal' being on the same level as Extreme. Normal would be on the same aspect as when we fought Ifrit at 20, Titan at 34, and Garuda at 44. THAT'S Normal. They'll need to address that.

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Originally Posted by Zaj_Quilos

Why is it hard to believe Soken has never heard a song from a band i only just heard about yesterday?

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Because denial is a sign of guilt. It sounds similar enough to have drawn some influence from it. That is just me anyway. Only they know the truth.

Powerman 5000 will be wasting their time regardless. The song doesn't have an explicit likeness outside of maybe like 3 total seconds and it is one of many songs put into a patch of content. The song to my knowledge hasn't been used to promote the content and cannot even be shown to have directly profited because of that likeness. Further more you have an explicit statement in regardless to the creator never hearing it which is viable in context of being thousands of miles away from the country in which it would have had airplay. On top of all this it would be on PM5K to make the case against SE until which SE is innocent until proven otherwise. Ultimately it would be a waste of time and money on PM5K's part outside of some obscure publicity from the legal trial itself. Also the potential of a defamation suit in return exists. I doubt they would have a lawyer to pursue this and the record company likely wouldn't bother doing it either due to the profit time frame of the music being well passed due.

It's just something for the media to sensationalize and people who listen to PM5K (read as "bad music") to get up in arms about.

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Originally Posted by Iromi

Because denial is a sign of guilt. It sounds similar enough to have drawn some influence from it. That is just me anyway. Only they know the truth.

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It actually isn't. That's just a figure of speech which ultimately holds no objective or legal weight. It's goal is to assume guilt instead of having to prove it. In a legal context it certainly is not true. Claiming innocence cannot be legally construed as an admittance of guilt. It is against the confines of due process and American law along with basic common sense.

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Originally Posted by Dante_V

It actually isn't.

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It is. Ever seen a kid deny doing something they did? I've baby sat enough kids to see it and with my mom running a daycare..ugggh lol.

"Did you write on the wall?" "NO I DIDNT..HE DID IT!!" when I actually SAW them do it. Same thing with ex boyfriends. Caught them going thru my computer and denying it when they didn't know I was standing right behind them. It happens all the time.

Denial = first sign of guilt. Maybe you are lucky and have not experienced people who deny stuff...well, I have lol.

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Originally Posted by KuwabaraValefor

Well, if it comes down to a legal dispute, I'm more than confident that Square Enix Holdings, Ltd. will settle the dispute out of court. This reminds me of the whole Vanilla Ice debacle. Anywho, personally, there's a more pressing matter in regards to Sephirot; mainly their concept of 'Normal' being on the same level as Extreme. Normal would be on the same aspect as when we fought Ifrit at 20, Titan at 34, and Garuda at 44. THAT'S Normal. They'll need to address that.

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Nah they said they were dropping the hard mode part off future primals

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Originally Posted by Iromi

Denial = first sign of guilt. Maybe you are lucky and have not experienced people who deny stuff...well, I have lol.

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That's quite a logical stretch..

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Originally Posted by Zaj_Quilos

Why is it hard to believe Soken has never heard a song from a band i only just heard about yesterday?

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Well, he said his favorite band is Rage Against the Machine, so I could see him listening to other mainstream rock music. Not to mention those two bands had mainstream success around the same time. Still, I wouldn't call him or Yoshi-P liars so if they say they didn't hear the song before then I'd give them the benefit of the doubt. Yet even if he heard it by accident and it was sitting in the back of his head for a couple decades and he didn't even realize he was inspired by it, it still wouldn't be enough (in my mind) to say he outright ripped them off. I gave both of them a listen and while they may sound similar in genre I can't say that they sound like the same song. I'm no lawyer, though, so that's just my opinion on it.

I really doubt this is going to come to anything. If they had a case they wouldn't be whining on the Internet like drama queens, they would have done it through lawyers. The wording of that Facebook post sounds like they're just complaining for attention more than anything else, a seemingly common occurrence among people in that particular music genre for some reason.

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Originally Posted by Iromi

Denial = first sign of guilt. Maybe you are lucky and have not experienced people who deny stuff...well, I have lol.

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Do you realize how inane this sounds to a bystander? It's evocative of the Salem Witch trials of the 1690's, where such 'conventional wisdom' was used to influence mass hysteria and cause the deaths of several people who had never committed a crime to begin with.

Perhaps it's best to keep that sort of perspective to yourself. We're not dealing with children here. In most free countries the law is 'innocent until proven guilty'. Let's start respecting that.

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Originally Posted by Iromi

Denial = first sign of guilt. Maybe you are lucky and have not experienced people who deny stuff...well, I have lol.

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I've been accused of things I know I didn't do and even had proof that I didn't do them.

By your logic, my truthful insistence that I had not done those things was a sign of me being guilty of them...

Sounds like a pretty strong personal bias in effect.

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Originally Posted by Iromi

It is.
.......
......
Denial = first sign of guilt. Maybe you are lucky and have not experienced people who deny stuff...well, I have lol.

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Completely forgot what I was going to post regarding the subject of this thread. This Post just did so much damage that I just can't. Way to go with that Logic there Iromi

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Originally Posted by Iromi

Denial = first sign of guilt.

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...you part of the Manitowoc community..? Dear gods, that's an archaic way of thinking.

Please people, there's a whole music genre based off of sounding the same:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsV5...youtu.be&t=13s

Iromi killed some1!!!!

NO! i didnt!!!!

denial = guilty

to the jail with her! :P

This seems really inflamed over inspiration and such. Should we contact Toei and let them know that the Midas final battle music sounds like Super Sentai theme songs? Reminds me of the argument of Metal Gear Solid's Theme being a rip off of Georgy Sviridov's Pushkin's Garland.

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Originally Posted by Warlyx

to the jail with her! :P

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Keep it up detective, theres a promotion in your future.

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Originally Posted by Iromi

Because denial is a sign of guilt. It sounds similar enough to have drawn some influence from it. That is just me anyway. Only they know the truth.

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Someone sounds a bit jaded. Despite your past experiences, there are good people in the world who are clueless and are not lying when they deny knowing something.

If we ignore everything about it that's different, the two are exactly the same.

Clearly the work of the Illuminati.

If anything there has got to be a positive from this situation. Soken now being informed of the similarities between both songs may even inspire him to really blow us away with his next piece. Just being optimistic. :)

Forgive me for this, but I have lawyer friends who wanted to comment and inform the masses.

So short answer is, Soken having not known about the PM5k song makes it a much longer, expensive, and difficult case for PM5K to prove. You cannot willfully feign ignorance though, that would actually, if proven, demonstrate intentional or willful infringement which is even worse than unintentional or negligent infringement.

Now, what is trying to be conveyed here is just understanding how American copyright law works sheds a lot of understanding for how this kind of issue works in the first place, even if JP uses different law in some places.

Long answer:

So let's make the assumption that PM5K decides to pursue an infringement action against Soken. The first thing to note is that the action would likely be against Square Enix since Soken is an employee of SE and the song is being used in FFXIV, which is a Square product.

So assuming the action is being brought against Square Enix Holdings Co, Ltd., the first question that needs to be considered is who has jurisdiction to hear the case. I am not 100% certain, but given that the lawsuit would be brought against a JP company, that would likely mean that the Japanese courts would have jurisdiction to hear the case, not American courts.

Now, this leads to the next key point. There is NO such thing as an international copyright. I will repeat that. There is no such thing as an international copyright. There are international treaties dealing with copyrights (ex. Berne Convention, TRIPS Agreement) but these serve two functions. First, agreements like Berne serve merely to state what all member countries view as the baseline components of a copyrighted work. TRIPS serves the important function of according all copyrights equal treatment under the law. This means that a French copyright is entitled to copyright protection in America even if it was created in France. This does NOT mean that French copyright law necessarily governs the case in America.

Japan is a member of Berne and a member of TRIPS so it is bound by those agreements as far as I just explained in that simplified statement.

(More information on Berne and TRIPS can be found on Wikipedia which does a decent job explaining the basics.)

Anyway, the jurisdiction question is important because we need to know which country's laws, which includes statutory and court-created, control on the matter. Now, while I am experienced in American copyright laws, I cannot say the same for Japanese laws. Based on some cursory research I conducted, it would seem Japan awards MORE copyright protection to authors and artists than American copyright law does, which is primarily seen by the fact that Japan includes "moral rights" in the list of enumerated rights.

Now, a couple of things further. Copyright infringement is fundamentally the same claim no matter which country you go to. There are three elements needed to establish a prima facie case for copyright infringement.

1. There needs to be a valid copyright,
2. There needs to be evidence the alleged infringer had access to the copyrighted work, and
3. There is substantial similarity between the allegedly infringing work and the copyrighted work

Granted, I am using American legal language here. The standards in JP may be different, but I believe they are highly similar in this regard at least.

The first element isn't contested here. There's no question PM5K had a valid copyright in their work. The primary questions will come down to access and substantial similarity.

Now, like I said earlier, I am not as familiar with JP copyright law and their case law. What I want to do is demonstrate the analysis as though this were in an American court to highlight how these issues are interpreted and analyzed.

Let's focus first on access. Yoshi just claimed that Soken had never heard "When World's Collide." Essentially, he's contesting access in this case. American courts require there to be "reasonable access" to a piece of music. This is "more than a bare possibility." See "Three Boys Music Corp. v. Michael Bolton". Reasonable access is proven in two ways, either by

1. A particular chain of events linking the two works, or
2. That the copyrighted work was widely disseminated.

Now, in our case here, there likely is no chain, so PM5K would allege Soken had access based upon the widespread dissemination prong. Now, in American courts, there is a doctrine of law since the 1920s that has held there is such a thing as "subconscious copying." The basic idea is that because a song was super popular and widely disseminated, the alleged infringer heard it and subconsciously copied it years later when he/she created the allegedly infringing work. See "Three Boys Corp. v. Michael Bolton".

I do not know if JP has adopted the "subconscious copying" access standard American courts have. Therefore, I cannot say one way or the other. Regardless, SE can make the argument that perhaps PM5K was only widely disseminated in the United States and never made it's way to Japan. Therefore, Soken never would have had even subconscious access to the music. If two works have evidence that they were created independently of each other, then the two works, no matter how similar, are not infringing. If access does not exist, a claim for infringement dies. A prima facie case requires evidence of ALL the elements. If any one is missing or lacking, the case is dismissed.

Now, let's assume access does exist. That brings us to this substantial similarity question: Just how similar is "substantially similar?" Courts have struggled to create a clear definition to this term. This is in part because judges don't want to put themselves in the position of being artistic critics who get to determine what works meet the thresholds.

The general policy in America is to grant more copyright protection rather than less. I am unsure if this policy is the same in Japan. It very well may not be, as America's wide use of copyright law is often cited as being one of the novel and extrinsically powerful aspects of American copyright law and part of why American copyrights are so dominant even in foreign countries. (See the EU and the recent push to enact a more uniform online music royalty system).

Let's start with the words though. It is not enough for a work to be similar, it must be SUBSTANTIALLY similar. Additionally, note that the language in American law is not "nearly identical." Thus, the works must be more than merely similar but not nearly identical.

To drive home just how variable this question of similarity is, consider the fact that just about every Circuit Court of Appeals has its own test for what "substantial similarity" means. Some circuits have used the "ordinary observer" test (see the Second Circuit). This test basically asks if an objective, ordinary person would believe the allegedly infringing work appropriated the original copyrighted work. Put another way, would our ordinary observer overlook any discrepancies as minor such that he would consider them the same work? The ordinary observer test is used in the First, Second, and Third Circuits. It looks at whether the works are so similar as to conclude that the infringer took a "significant" portion of the original when creating the infringing product. It is important to note, under the ordinary observer standard, it is assumed the observer is NOT looking for discrepancies, and instead is just listening to the two works

As if to make this even more confusing, similarity can be used to prove access. The more similar the work, the more likely a court and jury can infer that the infringer had access to the original work.

Unfortunately... it helps us very little in this debate. On the one hand, it's hard to call anyone on the internet objective on this matter. Most are fans of SE and there are definite concerns of bias. Second, even assuming objectivity, we see a wide array of people making statements of similarity or no similarity within the topics themselves.

Anyway, the Ninth Circuit created a rather bizarre test called the extrinsic/intrinsic test for analyzing similarity. The Ninth, Eighth, and Fourth all use some variant of the extrinsic/intrinsic test. The idea is that the court first looks at extrinsic or objective factors. In the context of music, this asks questions such as what the instrumentation was, the subject matter of the songs, and the setting in which the song was used. Court compare these extrinsic ideas to see if the ideas are substantially similar. If the extrinsic ideas are deemed substantially similar, then the court moves on to an intrinsic evaluation, which is purely subjective.

The intrinsic test focuses on the "total concept and feel" of the two copyrighted works to determine if they seem to be substantially similar overall. Expert testimony is not permitted to prove intrinsic but is for extrinsic. In our case here with SE and PM5K, that would mean we'd do the extrinsic analysis first. So we'd look at the instrumentation, the genre of the music, the setting of the music, and the subject matter of the songs, etc.

Based on that alone, I'd venture to make the argument that the extrinsic ideas are not necessarily similar. The setting for one is consumable music, the other is for a boss fight in a video game. The subject matter, based upon the lyrics, are also different. The instrumentation also differs in some ways (Soken uses more electronic elements). Both are industrial rock though. While experts can testify, there is still a certain degree of subjectivity to determining the similarity.

Now, if the court agreed with me, we'd stop there. If they concluded there was similarity, then we'd move to the intrinsic test. Unfortunately, this puts us back in the EXACT SAME PLACE we are at right now with this debate. Again, the intrinsic test is "is the total feel and concept between the two works substantially similar?" This is, as noted, purely subjective and is going to vary from person to person.

Now for the major kicker. I have no clue how Japan evaluates similarity or what the degree needs to be. I have no clue if they use the ordinary observer test, the extrinsic/intrinsic test, or something completely different. But, I doubt they have a very clear cut answer to what similarity needs to be given that American courts don't have one STILL after decades of jurisprudence.

Lastly, Sampling. Sampling is a practice in which one recording artist will digitally copy and remix sounds from previously recorded albums. This can implicate two copyrights. If the sample contains sufficient originality to stand on its own, then it can be protected. If not or the use is "de minimis" (meaning essentially minimal or barely used), then there is no infringement.

To put this in context, consider if Soken sampled a 6 second bass riff or guitar riff from PM5K's "When World's Collide." If the riff has sufficient originality, then Soken might be liable. If however, it was de minimis, then Soken can sample the song without fear of liability. It is worth noting, the shorter the sample, the harder to prove it's not de minimis. So when people insist "the bass is the same, the drum pattern is the same," that is poor grounds for proving copyright liability. If you really want to claim that a sample violated the original copyright, usually it has to incorporate a very unique feature, such as a distinct flourish or deliberately missed note.

The End.

Good gosh Dark... That's a read... But you bring interesting info to the thread. Thanks.
(Although you did repeat yourself in the first two paragraphs :P)
(First four paragraphs to your long answer)

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Originally Posted by Kerwin

(Although you did repeat yourself in the first two paragraphs :P)

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EDIT: I SEE IT

That is an incredibly informative post there, Dark494. Kudos on that.

Now, as to the two pieces of music.

Honestly, I've never heard of Powerman 5000 until 3.2 launched. I've never played a single Tony Hawk game because A: those kinds of games don't interest me and B: I've never owned a console other than an Atari 2600, Intellivision and Nintendo systems. However, now that I've heard of the pieces of music in question (When World Collide and Sephiroth Phase 2), there are certainly similarities but, being as I'm not as well versed in the (American) field of copyright, I cannot say if Soken's piece is enough to be classified as infringement (intentional or otherwise). Sadly, I wouldn't be surprised if there ends up being a quiet sneak change to Sephirot's theme that removes it.

Hell, there was once a performer, whom had left their band and went solo, who was later sued by the very band they were once a member of because they were accused of ripping off of the band's work. Judge threw the case out, however. The guy couldn't help the way he sings after all.

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Originally Posted by Vydos

I never once had the impression that the music sounded like that other song. I played tony hawk 2 and that song is still very fresh in my mind.
My first impression on sephirot was that it resembled something I'd hear from a Devil May Cry game. Which also have songs that kinda sound like the Tony hawk 2 song.

That said, people need to realize that the world is VERY large and vast. And that we humans exist in massive numbers. The chances of creating something that is 100% unique is VERY small. As an artist myself, there are moments I drew something. Only to end up noticing that someone else had almost the same idea as me. Heck, if you really look deeply in all forms or art. You'll find MANY simularities to other things. Just some food for thought.

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When I was 8 or 9 I thought I had a great idea for a series of novels about kids who turned into animals.

Animorphs came out a year or two later. I WAS SO MAD!

dark494's long and wonderful post brought up a point in my mind - doesn't Soken use a synthesizer almost exclusively in his work? So even if the instrumentation is similar, the instruments themselves cannot be identical because there is no keyboard or guitar or string bass - it's just the synthesizer with vocals overlaid.

For anyone that works within any industry related to music: This kind of thing happens ALOT and really shouldn't be any cause for concern unless someone gets money hungry or vengeful - Folks're making a mountain out of a molehill over this.

First off, I listen to a lot of industrial music and use to listen to a lot of nu metal and the only song this theme music reminded me of was When worlds collide. I don't think it was a direct rip off and there isn't much cause for legal action. It would have just been nice to hear that he did draw inspiration from When worlds Collide and apologize for not acknowledging during production.

Given Soken the benefit of the doubt, he probably heard it many moons ago and didn't realize he was drawing from the past.

As my dad, a musician of over 70 yrs, told me when I was a youngling - "There's only so many notes & so many chords; sooner or later things *will* sound almost identical without any plagiarism whatsoever."

It was about (if I remember rightly) either a Eurovision entrant or an obscure Cyber-Industrial track I was watching on TV or listening to that my mother was able to hum along, never having heard it before. After a few bars it was like she knew it perfectly (she's far from a musical person). Since then I've always listened to music differently & find many tracks sound like others but have no real relation. It's like pareidolia for music (similar to Apophenia, where you hear "tunes" where none exist).

it should an honest coincidence, things will always sound similar in music, especially when its in the same genre. here is a list of songs thats probably in ur phone and u don't know had an older similar beat counterpart.

http://www.complex.com/music/2013/01...ng-money-drake

Rest easy.

From Powerman5000's facebook:

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UPDATE on the Final Fantasy music controversy.
Fascinated by the level of interest in this. Opinions range from total agreement to extreme hatred towards the subject (and me apparently)
So crazy.
The original post was a two sentence observation about a piece of music that was way too similar to be coincidence.
Since then it has been taken as some sort of declaration of war. Oh, internet...
Anyway. There's no lawsuit, there's no cry for attention or publicity. Just an observation.
Going back to my normal M.O of not participating in social media. Thanx for the fun!

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They're clearly not happy (which I totally understand, though I also believe Soken), but I'm glad they left it at that.

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Originally Posted by Aeliott

Rest easy.

From Powerman5000's facebook:

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UPDATE on the Final Fantasy music controversy.
Fascinated by the level of interest in this. Opinions range from total agreement to extreme hatred towards the subject (and me apparently)
So crazy.
The original post was a two sentence observation about a piece of music that was way too similar to be coincidence.
Since then it has been taken as some sort of declaration of war. Oh, internet...
Anyway. There's no lawsuit, there's no cry for attention or publicity. Just an observation.
Going back to my normal M.O of not participating in social media. Thanx for the fun!

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For better or for worse, that is going to be seen as him realising he's made himself look a fool and is now trying to backtrack and save face. The internet will still be brutal as heck to him.

Thanks for posting this. I'm sorry to hear so many people attacked him for his comments earlier. :(

I just listened to the FFXIV and Powerman pieces, and I honestly don't think they're similar at all. Of the same genre, yes, but I'd never mistake those pieces for even being different versions of the same song.

The Powerman dude was wise to step off.

Phase 2 reminded me of the battle theme from Devil may Cry 3 when I first it.

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Originally Posted by Paladinleeds

For better or for worse, that is going to be seen as him realising he's made himself look a fool and is now trying to backtrack and save face. The internet will still be brutal as heck to him.

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I mean, that's exactly what it was. He made an extremely narrow-minded, idiotic comment, trying to call someone a ripoff. And he recieved a proverbial backhand for his comment - and if I speak honestly, it's not wholly unjustified.

How would you feel if you made something, only to have someone tell you that you CLEARLY STOLE IT FROM THEM?

I hope people continue riding them for it for a good while. The fact that not only did he back down, but he also insulted them (Saying they're not 'declaring war' and insulting the internet for it) shows just how much of an idiot this guy is.

Irrelevant band from the 90's claiming someone "ripped off" their song. Nah not buying it