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Was Konji Kondo inspired by music or a plagiarist? Discuss.
Kuranghi
Member
Fbh
Member
Some of these do sound like they were a heavy inspiration. But to me none of these sound like straight up plagiarism.
If a couple of seconds of a basic melody in a backing track are grounds for a copyright claim then music as we know it wouldn't exists as everyone would be constantly suing each other.
If a couple of seconds of a basic melody in a backing track are grounds for a copyright claim then music as we know it wouldn't exists as everyone would be constantly suing each other.
Business
Member
I really don't hear it. If anything it reminded me of the very start of Ken's theme, but rip-off?
ManaByte
Member
Ken's theme is completely Mighty Wings. Not Guile's.
swaffles23
Member
He composed the greatest Mario game of all time, Super Mario World, so he's not a fraud
Business
Member
Completely you mean the first 4 seconds of Ken's theme being not even identical?
SF Kosmo
Al Jazeera Special Reporter
The Underworld one is pretty blatant, particularly because it's such an unusual composition to start with. The others I don't think quite rise to the level of plagiarism but the SMB theme one seems at least clear enough to not be an accident.
That said, you know Kondo went on to write and continues to write a ton of amazing originals, he is hardly a hack. But he may have leaned a little more heavily on his influences in the beginning.
None of this is as bad as like, what Bobby Prince did on Doom and some of his other soundtracks, like just lifting entire songs wholesale.
That said, you know Kondo went on to write and continues to write a ton of amazing originals, he is hardly a hack. But he may have leaned a little more heavily on his influences in the beginning.
None of this is as bad as like, what Bobby Prince did on Doom and some of his other soundtracks, like just lifting entire songs wholesale.
OrionNebula
Member
Lame
If you don’t see the very fine line between inspiration, homage, and pure & blatant copying, then I feel sad for you
ManaByte
Member
No it is Mighty Wings. It was originally meant to be Guile's theme (because the themes were written for the locations), but it was switched to Ken's stage because having a theme derived from Mighty Wings on a stage with jets is a bit too on the nose.
Business
Member
? No I get what you say, but my point is besides a small bit that is not even identical (as in, overall very similar but still some different notes) the songs are so different that calling Ken's theme from SF2 a rip-off or "completely" Mighty Wings is quite a stretch.
Damien Crowley
Member
My most "Whoa" moment with video game music was, when I first heard the soundtrack of "Tanz der Vampire" (The musical version of "The Fearless Vampire Killers") in the mid 2000's...
Anybody hear what i mean?
Anybody hear what i mean?
TheInfamousKira
Reseterror Resettler
Just saw that, solid plagiarized gold. Good luck out there, buddy. Fighting the good fight. Trying to expose songs that are loosely inspired by music that's like 50 years old. AN HERO.
Krappadizzle
Member
it's not:
dun dun dun dada dun dun
dun dun dun dada dun dun
it's:
dun dun dun dada dun dun
da dun dun dun dada dun dun
Completely different.
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Krappadizzle
Member
mcjmetroid
Member
I'm the first to shit on Nintendo for lots of things but this thread is really reaching dude.
Its really frustrating explaining to a non music person how similar a lot of songs are to each other in general.
Non these pieces are similar to each other to warrant being called a plagerist.
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Krappadizzle
Member
I've always loved the epiphany I'd see when I would start giving buddies guitar lesson and show them how you can play thousands of songs if you can learn 3 chords.
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
It's called inspiration. Welcome to the world of music.
Unless you can straight up replace the source of inspiration with the song in the game and give more or less the same result to the listener, then it's not plagiarism.
Unless you can straight up replace the source of inspiration with the song in the game and give more or less the same result to the listener, then it's not plagiarism.
OrionNebula
Member
I’ve been in the world of music for almost 20 years, now. Multiple music contracts and all.
This is pure, blatant plagiarism. Has Kondo ever memtioned his ‘’inspirations’’ before this got out?
See Vanilla Ice video above posted by
Krappadizzle
That’s how you sound to me
Welcome to the world of music indeed. Hope you enjoy your stay
D
Deleted member 17706
Unconfirmed Member
I’ve been in the world of music for almost 20 years, now. Multiple music contracts and all.
This is pure, blatant plagiarism. Has Kondo ever memtioned his ‘’inspirations’’ before this got out?
See Vanilla Ice video above posted by
That’s how you sound to me
Welcome to the world of music indeed. Hope you enjoy your stay
I am enjoying my stay, because as a listener of music, I do not give a shit. The impression I get from all of the tracks claimed to be inspirations in the OP's video is completely different to what I get from Koji Kondo's music. They are not interchangeable in the slightest.
I hope your approach has led you to a great deal of success.
Krappadizzle
Member
I'm pretty sure he's mentioned it a few times, directly talking about it in interviews I've seen. Doesn't really discredit anything you said though.I’ve been in the world of music for almost 20 years, now. Multiple music contracts and all.
This is pure, blatant plagiarism. Has Kondo ever memtioned his ‘’inspirations’’ before this got out?
See Vanilla Ice video above posted by
That’s how you sound to me
Welcome to the world of music indeed. Hope you enjoy your stay
I'm of a conflicted opinion on the matter. I do think it's too close to say it isn't plagiarism, but it also evolves at a certain point too and becomes its own thing as well.
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Trilobit
Member
Ever since I was very young I was just astounded by much of Nintendo's music. For example the themes of Wing Cap and Super Mario Bros 2 made a big impression in my musical heart. It's quite cool to think that I was sort of listening to Japanese fusion and jazz as a kid. I feel that in our time of copyright strikes people are a bit too harsh on creatives. Many songs in for example 50s and forward are covers and heavily inspired by other works. If we got all the amazing tunes because Kondo took bits and pieces of other works, I don't mind. The creative world is such a melting pot of ideas and works that it'd be a shame if people would feel afraid to freely create.
On the other hand I also think credits where credits due.
On the other hand I also think credits where credits due.
ManaByte
Member
Dr Bass
Member
Some picks from A Link to the Past:
Kakariko sounds like Dunbars theme.
One of the dungeon themes sounds like a sequence from ChinaTown.
He obviously took one of the most famous cues from Psycho in the cave music.
Tons of video games do this kinda thing though.
Also listen to River People by Weather Report.
Kakariko sounds like Dunbars theme.
One of the dungeon themes sounds like a sequence from ChinaTown.
He obviously took one of the most famous cues from Psycho in the cave music.
Tons of video games do this kinda thing though.
Also listen to River People by Weather Report.
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Neff
Member
Nah he's clearly a James Horner guy
Yeah now THAT was straight up plagiarism. Kondo pilfered the odd riff here and there but nothing like what Iwase did. When you have melodies and chord progression which hits parallels over the several sustained minutes you really don't have any defence.
ManaByte
Member
Neff
Member
Needed some Krull in there too. It's basically just the Khan OST but shuffled around a bit. And like Khan it's an absolute banger. And both scores are heavily derived from Prokofiev's Battle on the Ice-
Which just goes to show how invalid OP's point is. There's nothing wrong with recycling material when it's really fucking good.
infinitys_7th
Member
I think there is a key point from Notch - "I'm working on an Infiniminer clone, but with more materials and crafting". It's obvious that Notch did better procedural generation than Infiniminer as well (if Infiniminer has it, I'm not very familiar with Minecraft and never played Infiniminer), and used that procedural generation creatively to drive the gameplay loop. All those layers are what make Minecraft what it is. It really would be similar to someone complaining about SMB stealing their idea because their character jumped on simple levels of blocks before Mario.
I'm not a fan of Minecraft at all either, but I see why people like it and that goes well beyond mining pixelated blocks.
cartman414
Member
F31 Leopard
Member
I know jack shit about music but I don't think it's plagiarism. It's no different than a parody song that sounds similar. At 03:23 you can clearly hear it's a play on FF7's battle theme. Even the victory theme as well. It's sounds similar but is not the same.
Sleepwalker
Member
I was going to write a detailed post on why you are a clown OP but I see others in this thread have already taken care of it.
No Music exists in a vacuum.
It's quite hard, to almost literally impossible to produce a 100% brand new never heard before music track, it's just not the way music works, the fact that the video you posted doesn't claim it's fraud and the fact that there's literal institutions in place to protect musicians rights against plagiarism and no action has ever come against Kondo should be enough for you to back down from those takes, but if this is the hill you decided to die on then all I can say is good riddance lol
No Music exists in a vacuum.
It's quite hard, to almost literally impossible to produce a 100% brand new never heard before music track, it's just not the way music works, the fact that the video you posted doesn't claim it's fraud and the fact that there's literal institutions in place to protect musicians rights against plagiarism and no action has ever come against Kondo should be enough for you to back down from those takes, but if this is the hill you decided to die on then all I can say is good riddance lol
01011001
Banned
that's not even the same melody? wtf are you talking about
similar tone that's about it. there are at most 2 notes in a row that might match here and there, but that's way below what anyone would take issue with.
Neff
Member
It's blatantly the same melody and close enough for Konami to remove it from the series going forward. They didn't have a leg to stand on and they knew it.
Daniel Thomas MacInnes
GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
Funny, I always thought the Super Mario Bros underground music was clipped from Miles Davis' "Calipso Frelimo" from Get Up With It. It's close enough to give me a chuckle. Heck, maybe Friendship stole their melody from Miles and Nintendo stole it from them.
There's also the F-Zero theme on Super Nintendo that totally sounds like the ending to Frank Zappa's Waka/Jawaka. That's definitely nice to hear.
Look, kids, when it comes to music, everybody clips from everyone else. That's just the way it goes. The really smart ones (like Bob Dylan) just steal from sources that are just obscure enough for you to ever notice. But everything is stolen from what came before. If you want true musical originals, you'll have to go back to the caveman who was hitting rocks with sticks.
There's also the F-Zero theme on Super Nintendo that totally sounds like the ending to Frank Zappa's Waka/Jawaka. That's definitely nice to hear.
Look, kids, when it comes to music, everybody clips from everyone else. That's just the way it goes. The really smart ones (like Bob Dylan) just steal from sources that are just obscure enough for you to ever notice. But everything is stolen from what came before. If you want true musical originals, you'll have to go back to the caveman who was hitting rocks with sticks.
Rean no Kiseki
Banned
Salsa?
Bitmap Frogs
Mr. Community
As a longtime fan of Cassiopeia and The square every time this crops up I laugh a little. Sega took a shitton of musical cues from the as well, and so did other Japanese devs. If you listen to the full Cassiopeia vs The square megaconcert I guarantee you’ll be going like “hey isn’t this in that video game?” every 5 minutes.
These two groups were super popular and super influential in Japan.
These two groups were super popular and super influential in Japan.
Jack Videogames
Gold Member
I can absolutely see it in the T-Square song, but the Morning Glory comparison is a reach and the youtuber knows it.
SF Kosmo
Al Jazeera Special Reporter
You want some real shit? How about this one by notorious thief Bobby Prince, who went on to do Doom and Duke Nukem.
Sound familiar? Yeah...
Kuranghi
Member
Trilobit
Member
Another key point would be the word working. Atleast according to the video the developer of Infiniminer pretty much jumped to other projects and didn't really care about the game all that much in the end. Notch continued developing his game(not to mention with a lot of input from other people) and didn't give up on it. Zach Barth may have laid the foundation, but Notch made the efforts and work necessary to make it to something widely appealing.
To his credit, Barth's problem doesn't seem to be with Minecraft's succes, but rather with family and friends who keep pestering him about it.
Virt McPolygon
Banned
TheInfamousKira
Reseterror Resettler
Well shit, I'm hearing the Fairy Theme, shades of Twilight Princess' main theme, and a little flourish of the Crystal Theme from Final Fantasy, and Koji Kondo didn't even write that!