I just read the article titled, “Katy Perry accused of
ripping off other musicians: Music producer claims singer stole lyric video
concept for new single ‘Roar’” on nydailynews.com. Perry’s new track ‘Roar’
does sound VERY similar to Sara Bareilles’ track ‘Brave’ that was released
earlier this year. Normally, I would not care in the least about either of
these musicians. However, the fact that she was being accused of plagiarism in
the music realm while simultaneously being slammed for allegedly stealing a
lyric video concept by producer Dillon Francis seemed compelling since both of
these accusations came so soon after the release of the album.
While most critics are slamming Perry, Sara Bareilles
responded in the appropriate fashion by simply replying to the incident on
twitter with, “All love, everybody. All love.” After all, what does she have to
lose? She can only gain exposure from this as her video for “Brave” uploaded 3
months ago has just over 4 million views on YouTube as of 8/15/2013, and Perry’s
“Roar” from 3 days ago has over 7.5 million views on YouTube. The two tracks
are very similar sounding both rhythmically and in composition. Structurally
they are almost identical and both tracks are even the exact same in length. Here
is a link to a mashup comparing these similarities. What makes this a trifecta is
the accusation by Dillon Francis who claims Perry and her crew stole the
concept for her lyric video from his song “Messages.”
On one hand, you cannot patent or hold copyright for a ‘concept’
which I thought was what Dillon Francis was alleging. I just thought that his
position seemed gratuitous, or at least that is the way the article presented
his position; until I watched his video for “Messages” on YouTube. Within
seconds I started laughing out loud because the obvious reason for his
accusation became crystal clear to me. While the video Francis made is much
better than Perry’s in the substance realm, it’s hard to say that she had at
least never seen this when her video for “Brave” is so strikingly similar.
I posted the three videos below so that you can make the call yourself. I preceded these three videos with “Hard
Knock Life” by Jay Z because I think that both Bareilles and Perry used his
beat, just sped up. The opening beat starts about 30 seconds into the video
(for the impatient). Compare the beats and videos and post your comments below.
Videos
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