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PlayStation Japan recently uploaded a video that was intended to highlight some of the biggest releases for the PlayStation 4 this holiday season, but it seems there was more to the music video than first thought. The video featured titles like Death Stranding, Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and others, accompanied by clips of animation under the direction of Kevin Bao. These bits of animation are what sparked the controversy, as other artists began to notice that the video used exact animations from other pieces of work from anime and cartoons, such as FLCL, Steven Universe, and Souviens Ten-Zan. A Twitter post below, from Catsuka, shows the exact moments and compares them with what the pieces assumedly originated from.

Latest Sony PS4 Lineup Music Video is a rip of many animations from all around the world ......
(Steven Universe, FLCL, Gobelins, Souviens Ten-Zan ...).
The video is now offline : https://t.co/LPWyFWzEEw
But you can still find it online : https://t.co/KfS79oRrs5 pic.twitter.com/6Q0hrFK2AT

— Catsuka (@catsuka) December 4, 2019

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Once the claims gained traction, Sony took the video down promptly, and quietly. (The above video is a re-upload.) Meanwhile, the studio that was in charge of creating the video, Eallin Animation, stated the following, in regards to the plagiarism claims:

Failed to fetch tweet https://twitter.com/EallinAnimation/status/1202273300862447617​

 

[ChibiMofo]

Everyone deserves empathy

No, not everyone does. I'm not saying Kevin doesn't, though I can't imagine feeling sorry for a thief personally, but there are countless examples throughout history of people that deserve zero empathy.

And there's a difference between downloading a "ROM" you didn't pay for and probably wouldn't have anyway and stealing other people's work for a living.
A BIG difference.

 

[x65943]

No, not everyone does. I'm not saying Kevin doesn't, though I can't imagine feeling sorry for a thief personally, but there are countless examples throughout history of people that deserve zero empathy.

And there's a difference between downloading a "ROM" you didn't pay for and probably wouldn't have anyway and stealing other people's work for a living.
A BIG difference.

I disagree - you don't have to forgive everyone but that doesn't mean you can't feel bad for them

 

[Sakitoshi]

mmm... I'm doubtful about this one, the movement is the same but everything else is completely different.
the real question here is. is it really similar enough to be considered plagiarism?
and there is also the factor that maybe the intention was to feel recognizable and it was done like that on purpose and modifying the scenes enough to not be (legally) considered plagiarism.

 

[YukidaruPunch]

Not saying it's an alright thing to do, but people do use references as basis to other works all the time. I really like how Naruto straight-up copied a fighting sequence from Cowboy Bebop:

So yeah, it's something that happens, even in the industry.

People have also mentioned the memorable Akira scene, a staple of animation that has been referenced many times over. On those cases, it's almost like Fair Use: people know what's copying, they know it's supposed to be a nod. So it's not like something is being "stolen"; it's most like paying respects.

However, somewhat like the Naruto scene I mentioned above, stealing other people's work and passing off as your own is pragiarism. It's literally that: trying to make monetary profit out of something you didn't originally create. It strays from referencing and moves toward stealing. It's petty, as there's financial compensation involved, and quite honestly, it's a crime.

I'm not really sure what the animator was thinking when they outright copied something for such a gigantic and profilic company such as Sony. This isn't the '90s or '00s anymore, it's 2019 and a ton of people are connected and consume media all the time. And not only that, pretty much all of the scenes were based on something else. This is serious.

I don't mean ill of the animator but it's hard to say they didn't do anything wrong. To be contracted by Sony and give out plagiarised work is not only unethical but extremely short-sighted. It's one of those thing you can't believe how it happened, but it happened nonetheless.

 

[FAST6191]

mmm... I'm doubtful about this one, the movement is the same but everything else is completely different.
the real question here is. is it really similar enough to be considered plagiarism?
and there is also the factor that maybe the intention was to feel recognizable and it was done like that on purpose and modifying the scenes enough to not be (legally) considered plagiarism.

I don't see how it would fail in copyright court or even be all that challenged if it did find itself in front of a judge. The baseline for creativity is set rather low in most places (music probably being the best example http://www.ivanhoffman.com/fairusemusic.html ) and timings, framings and locations with respect to both for those of things for animation traditionally and to many extents even presently represents a considerable creative and technical effort, and in this case I doubt you could argue simple coincidence or the sorts of things we see in programming where there are limited ways to achieve a goal.

 

[Sakitoshi]

I don't see how it would fail in copyright court or even be all that challenged if it did find itself in front of a judge. The baseline for creativity is set rather low in most places (music probably being the best example http://www.ivanhoffman.com/fairusemusic.html ) and timings, framings and locations with respect to both for those of things for animation traditionally and to many extents even presently represents a considerable creative and technical effort, and in this case I doubt you could argue simple coincidence or the sorts of things we see in programming where there are limited ways to achieve a goal.

If I understood you correctly. you think he is gonna lose?
obviously those shots are no coincidence. one could have been, but several, not a chance.
after reading some about fair use he might get away if the work is transformative enough (whatever that actually means) and doesn't hurt the other parties goals, which seems to be the case.

in my opinion, he just fucked up. as I said earlier, maybe the intention was to be recognizable and he sure achieved that, but at the cost of pissing of other artists and his public and professional image.

 

[FAST6191]

If I understood you correctly. you think he is gonna lose?
obviously those shots are no coincidence. one could have been, but several, not a chance.
after reading some about fair use he might get away if the work is transformative enough (whatever that actually means) and doesn't hurt the other parties goals, which seems to be the case.

in my opinion, he just fucked up. as I said earlier, maybe the intention was to be recognizable and he sure achieved that, but at the cost of pissing of other artists and his public and professional image.

Even one would be something I expect to have to sell to a judge/jury, and have a hard time doing it. If they wanted to they could probably get a forensics expert to comb over the machine and see if they have the clips in question (or evidence thereof). They are also not limited to that and while I don't know the approaches used as well for this sort of thing as I do for music, code, books and general patents I imagine it is pretty similar in the broad strokes and one might look for bugs (if motion is supposedly smooth or accelerating in a demonstrable fashion and it ends up going forward or back where it should not, or went too fast during that point despite it being constant speed elsewhere then you ought to have a mightily good reason), if there are multiple elements moving (that sequence with the "ribbons" probably being a good one) then that also stretches coincidence for a lot of things (even more so if there are "bugs" in those or in combination) if we step outside strict mathematical patterns.

Hurting other parties (and not being parody, review/critique or educational in nature enough to dodge it via that route) does not have to mean out and out competition. Sampling covered this one -- the 90s gangster rap that brought us a few cases (and thousands of examples, sorry for the wasted evening https://www.whosampled.com/browse/ ) probably could not be said to compete with the 50s-70s soul, blues and rock/metal that was commonly sampled but still counts as competition. Or if you prefer if someone now sees this, does not know time of release and assumes the original artists copied their work and thus the artist is deprived in some way the law would likely seek to avoid.

As far as recognisable are these notable sequences in things? While you can pay homage to whatever you like (and artists frequently pick things the plebs might not have caught or appreciate) it does make things a bit harder if they are cribbed from random places.

 

[XDel]

21st Century People Problems

 

[FAST6191]

21st Century People Problems

Performance rights go back quite a way, and copyright goes back longer still. Both older than the 20th century, never mind the 21st.

 

[Foxi4]

Maybe the animation was meant to be recognized, as a parody/homage? Like this scene:

I believe that was the intention, yes. Some people argue that it was so close it was effectively tracing, but from where I'm sitting that's sort of the point - it's supposed to be as close to the source material as possible without actually being the same. To be fair though, I'm no expert.

 

[Bladexdsl]

cartoons have been copying each others animations/scenes for years since the damn 80's the biggest culprits were mgm and WB they pretty much ripped off each others scenes, jokes etc for years! and people have just noticed this now happening in cartoons?

 

[XDel]

Performance rights go back quite a way, and copyright goes back longer still. Both older than the 20th century, never mind the 21st.

My point being that there are much larger issues in life to worry about...

 

[FAST6191]

My point being that there are much larger issues in life to worry about...

Doesn't that apply to just about everything?

If you carry on along that path you end up with no interests and a lot of anguish so might as well have some interests instead.

 

[Zidarn]

The worst part about it is that(at least for me) it was rly cool...

 

[ImSoHandsome]

What a guy

 

[Foxi4]

cartoons have been copying each others animations/scenes for years since the damn 80's the biggest culprits were mgm and WB they pretty much ripped off each others scenes, jokes etc for years! and people have just noticed this now happening in cartoons?

I think it became a bigger deal in recent history due to the whole "OC char donut steel" mentality. I don't think a mash-up like this is evidence of lack of creativity, quite the opposite. If we had that kind of mentality in the 60's Andy Warhol would've been out of a job. The point of the animation, the way I see it, was to draw, very directly, from the collective cultural experience of our generation by reworking familiar imagery into something new. This isn't a new concept, and it's not necessarily lazy either - you have to string all of those recreated images together into a coherent whole. I can only guess that it was supposed to remind the viewer's subconscious of all the good times they've had with all these properties, but I suppose it did go quite far in the "recreating" department. Long story short, it's not an exact copy-paste, but it's pretty close to it. I'd call it transformative, if anything - plagiarism would have to be proven more conclusively by pointing out directly ripped assets. I wonder if this would've been such a controversy if the artist simply disclosed all of his inspirations and sources publicly - perhaps then it would've been considered an homage.

 

[chaoskagami]

rotoscoping

There are plenty of legitimate uses for rotoscoping besides deadlines. Multiple animation companies have used it to produce unique artstyles before and to produce more realistic fight scenes.

Therefore, don't place tracing and rotoscoping in the same category. They're only in the same category if you're rotoscoping based on someone else's footage.

I wonder if this would've been such a controversy if the artist simply disclosed all of his inspirations and sources publicly - perhaps then it would've been considered an homage.

Assuming that Sony didn't contract the company to produce an "original" animation, sure. I'm pretty sure for a university art project that would be fine, but it definitely doesn't look good for Sony to be displaying plagiarized anime cuts.

 

[depaul]

TBH I didn't find the art style suitable for video games. It looks more like a horror or psycho anime

 

[Jayro]

The likenesses are pretty close, but not exact. He can still win this.

 

[Bimmel]

Had to mute, the music raped my ears.