AKB48’s Minami Takahashi’s “Blatant Plagiarism” Exposed
- Categories: Japan, News
- Date: Jul 18, 2013 01:14 JST
- Tags: AKB48, Comparison, Copyright, Idol, Otaku, Plagiarism
The latest scandal to be released by AKB48 sees Minami Takahashi uncovered passing off “blatantly plagiarised” art as her own copyrighted logo designs.
Various official AKB48 logos “designed by Minami Takahashi” and featuring on AKB sites and goods have been identified as bearing an uncanny resemblance to images pulled off the Internet, the first case being the uncannily appropriate choice of a pirate ship taken from a stock photo site:
A circus, also appropriately enough, featured next:
The AKB48 editions are marked “© Takamina,” whilst the various sites they are apparently appropriated from bear dire legal warnings about just this sort of misappropriation.
Shortly after the issue surfaced, the AKB imagery quietly began to be revised to bear less of a resemblance:
Her supposed artistic prowess was also featured on TV, but again doubts arose:
Online there is not faith in her talents or integrity evident:
“A perfect match…”
“Time for the usual tearful apology I think.”
“Will she shave herself for us?”
“They’ve already started sneakily swapping out the art though…”
“Plagiarism is the worst. What is she, Chinese?”
“Are you all crazy! It’s a galleon, they all look alike!”
“It does bear a resemblance to sometihng out of One Piece.”
“The ship is completely out. As for the tent…”
“I could forgive the boat, but the wave as well is a bit much.”
“I think she may have actually drawn the frog from the photo herself though.”
“Is tracing really that bad? Mangaka do it all the time.”
“At least combine parts from multiple works to cover it up…”
“It is a bit much to be putting their stolen designs on goods and selling them to fans.”
“I didn’t think she’d survive the arrest of her mother, but this time it is hard to see her continuing.”
“Aren’t they ashamed to be trotting out a sex criminal’s daughter on TV still?”
“They managed to get Google to drop all mention of that from their autosuggest too…”
“Did anyone really think any of these incompetents could draw or actually do anything?”
“I think they’ll just ignore it this time.”
“How do they find this stuff in the first place…”
| 
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Would there be so much issues about copyrights if we lived under communism? xD
Plagiarism and copyright are not the same thing. Of course, since she did neither, the distinction doesn't really matter here.
OH BIG FKN DEAL.....
In related news we match up the roundness of peoples iris's and find that they are all round.
You copied my iris?! Son of a bitch!
People still think they can get away with plagiarism in this day and age?
Tell that to Rob Liefeld.
We all knew there was no talent in AKB48 anyway.
No talent??? What would you call their sexy costumes then???
raw materials?
Ok ok you're right. I admit it, their costumes have talent.
Good packaging. v(ʘωʘ)v
Girls just want to have fun, that is fun.
Amazon.
AKB48 are on the way to their Nadir. It was good until it lasted.
who cares ...
“Plagiarism is the worst. What is she, Chinese?”
LOL
The Malaysian
Yeah, because copyright is taken SO seriously in Japan, China, the Koreas, etc...
Lame.
You apparently don't know anything about Japan. Pro-Tip: Asia isn't homogeneous. Well, at least culturally. Appearance-wise...
(I jest. It used to be difficult, but I can now semi-reliably tell certain nationalities apart from the rest.)
AKBPirates48 - they'll be boarding your ship to do a hook-shaking event and load it with meaningless ballast... er... valuable disks.
I doubt those interested in her art actually expect to design the pictures herself. Surely drawing them is enough.
This isn't plagiarism. This is using reference. It's a little bit lazy, but there's nothing illegal or even really dishonest about this. While it's clear she (or whoever created this art) looked ta these other images for reference, it's obvious that they were neither traced or duplicated using photoshop or another program.
The artist is totally within her rights to copyright these images. She's done nothing wrong. If she's lazy or a crappy illustrator... well, that's another matter.
Holy crap! An artist used references for a drawing! Call the police!
I see nothing wrong here.
I'm with you on this.
Well, she draws a frog/butterfly/frigate, and they accuse her, that the drawing looks like a FUCKIN frog/butterfly/frigate.
And how would you draw a frog/butterfly/beetle?
I'll allow the possibility she does have photographic memory and are just drawing those from memory.
I do however have a question why her name is in pencil but her drawings are in ink... as if they were printed on there. A special deal AKB made with the school to pass the idols so they could perform?
Take any picture, and there'll be a similar one on the internet.
Construct any sentence, Google it, and there'll be an identical one written by someone before.
Everything's been done before. There's nothing you can do except go kill yourself. But that's been done before too...
Or, you can flip the plagiarism nazis the finger and go on with your lives.
Maybe you could make this argument if her 'art' were not so obviously googled. You just sound like a feminazi defending anything a precious innocent woman does even though she is part of a group known for scandals, odd behavior and no talent.
They have talent. Swindling requires talent.
the 02 26 anon didn't talk about women, huh? you're always bringing this subject and it's tiring
tiring? ok so don't read my comments?
They're supposed to be tiring, they're supposed to wear you down until you give up on 3d women and join the revolution.
i'm tired but not killed you know
my revolution is far from being yours
Taylor knows as much about women as a nun knows about sex.
(to 06:57 18/07/2013) And you're not even talking about Sigui from Queen's Blade ;)
Sorry, but |2d| < |3d| will always be true, regardless of how many idiotic posts you make.
I wouldn't jump right to calling her a plagiarist, just a talentless hack with no sense of creativity or spirit of innovation.
Which one is worse? I don't know. You decide.
Most of them are different enough they wouldn't violate any trade marks or copyrights.
Nice boat.
Maybe she can get a job designing tees for Todd Goldman.
I hope you realized that the pics she "Copied" were made after she drew them, it's known as fan art..
And everyone loves to draw logos.
I also noticed that just after the election, it's been months now, and you're still looking at everything bad now...
Get a life and go look at something else, we get it already... It's been months and you're STILL looking at AKB48 like it's Sonic 06.. Go listen to Skrillex or Occasia Strain and just stop watching AKB48, you hate it, why are you still watching it?!
That frog picture is fan art? Wow pretty amazing said only the idiots in the room.
The frog is irrelevant, since it's not one of the drawings she was passing off as her original logo designs.
Wowww what an important news...
Slow news day eh?
She picked up photos on google and they apparently were copyrighted.
The internet sucks balls now.
Which is irrelevant because copyright doesn't cover making your own original art based on theirs.
It's open to interpretation how much is based and how much is copied.
They would have bought the stock photos since theyd probably be a wopping $5 each. Then they could literally do whatever the fuck they want to them as they own the rights to use them as they please.
Don't they have anything better to do?