Ancient rock band Powerman 5000 have accused MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV of flagrantly stealing their music, an accusation which has been greeted by skeptics as little more than a plea for attention.
The disgruntled band made the comment on their official Facebook page, prompting Final Fantasy XIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida to post a response denying the accusation:
I have read through your comments concerning the BGM for the 2nd phase of the Containment Bay S1T7 battle with Sephirot, and I would like to personally explain how the track was conceived.
As most FINAL FANTASY fans already know, Sephirot (the Fiend) is a legacy boss character who originally appeared in FINAL FANTASY VI.
When considering how to portray Sephirot’s return in FINAL FANTASY XIV, we decided to pay tribute to FFVI by working VI’s “Battle to the Death” track into the Containment Bay S1T7’s first phase, while opting to create an FFXIV original for the second.
Building upon the motif of Sephirot as a representation of the World Tree, to create this FINAL FANTASY XIV original track, we further incorporated story-driven themes of death and a warped obsession with life, all while utilizing a musical genre─industrial rock─which we believed would provide substantial emphasis to the message.
Industrial rock is a popular genre that can be further divided into numerous sub-genres. Countless songs from these genres have been released worldwide, and I have been made aware of an allegation regarding similarities between an existing track and the track created for the 2nd phase of Containment Bay S1T7.
However, track composer Masayoshi Soken, has also stated to me that he was unaware of the track in question while working on this FINAL FANTASY track.
We hope that you continue to enjoy FINAL FANTASY XIV battle content.
The allegedly infringing piece can be heard about 5 minutes into the video, when the music transitions:
The Powerman 5000 song that they claim was “ripped-off”:
They changed it enough to avoid being sued, but clearly used the Powerman 5000 song as the staring point.
Plagiarism doesn’t seem to be viewed as negatively in Japan as the West. This is just a another in a long list, I still remember how disappointed I was when I realized my favorite track from one of the animes than first interested me (Record of Lodoss War) was a note for note rip off from the Leviathan soundtrack. Magical Power of Evil Mage Wagnard = Too Hot.
I can see why this might be confusing but after listening to both songs I can’t see this as a rip-off.
Similar yes.
After all you can only make so much music before a songs start sounding familiar.
Omg, we’re running out of music.
f♥♥k it.
How much would it cost to pay off PM5k for this just to make em happy?
10k?
Lifetime subscriptions with full retainers?
There you go.
So this one raised flags, but not Good King Moggle’s theme song which is based (just BASED) on The Night Before Christmas..? This is why people hate the copyright system: any fool can claim “ownership” over any little thing and somehow get away with it because nobody understands how it actually works.
Obvious ripoff is obvious.