Any artist with a new single to launch will surely welcome a spot of publicity from landing the trending list. Not unless they’re trending for the wrong reasons which is exactly what happened to former Miss A member Meng Jia once her new song Glass Wall 透明空间 hit the airwaves. The problem herein lies not with the song per se but the album cover which Netizens claim is plagiarized.
Jia’s appearance in last year’s Sisters Who Make Waves 乘风破浪的姐姐 combined with a new song and her (almost) topless album cover was clearly enough to cause a positive stir. Meng Jia had commented on social media that she sacrificed a lot of brain cells thinking up the song, cover, dance and stage for her new single. However, Netizens started pointing out her cover appears to be plagiarized.
Indeed, from the photo Netizens dug up to support their claim, the similarities between the two appear to be uncanny – from the angle the photo was taken, the lighting, the placement of arms, the shoes, the unzipped jeans with underwear sticking out and the hair loosely flowing down the back .. while not entirely identical, it’s very close.
Since Miss A’s disbandment several years ago, many have been skeptical whether Jia and Miss A bandmate Wang Fei can replicate their success back home in China. In fact, when both of them joined the reality survival show Sisters Who Make Waves, naysayers have said they won’t be successful in making a showbiz comeback. Releasing a fresh new song should’ve paved the way for an industry comeback for Meng Jia . . Now that it’s marred with claims of plagiarism, will the old saying “any publicity is good publicity” still hold when it comes to her showbiz return?
On January 28, Meng Jia studio issued an apology and explained that after Meng Jia had elaborated her creative needs for the single cover, her studio searched for a large number of photographs for reference which included the related works from the photograph in question (Instagram @sashabarss). When the studio finally settled on one version and provided the plan to Meng Jia, she had approved it without having seen the original photo. On the day of the photoshoot, Meng Jia shot different sets wearing different clothes and settled on the photo that was closest to her ideal concept. The studio says the staff knew that the photo was very similar but didn’t inform Meng Jia of the risks. For that, the studio apologizes to the creative team behind the original photo, towards everyone upset by the issue and to Meng Jia. Meng Jia herself also issued an apology.
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unicorn
If she is confident of the quality of her song, why would she need to have a sexy cover to sell it? Besides, it doesn’t even look sexy; just tensely awkward.
HL
China is full of plagiarized projects, goods, music etc…They singled out Yu Zheng and Guo Jingming to punish….but what about the rest?
Anon
Because those 2 have been openly proud of their plagiarism and actively do it and have done it for more than 10 years. They are well known in their industry for it. So if anyone is to be publicly made an example of with the new law, these 2 should be the first. In this case, the singer said she didn’t realize it. It may be her first time too. The creative agency should take more responsibility for this. Anyway, with the new law in place, I’m sure other habitual offenders who might have done so to a lesser extent would stop and others would now be more careful to doublecheck the sources of their work and not start.
Nano
So they know and still do it disgrace…hope they r severely punish and the new plagiarism cop enforce these stuff…bs that she not aware ? ?
Tastentier
That is not how copyright law works, sorry. You can’t copyright a pose and an angle. Even if someone flat out steals your photo and digitally alters it in a significant way, you may be out of luck since derivative creative works are perfectly legal.
IP law is already way too constricting as it is. Artists sue each other over dance moves or 5 musical notes played in the same order, which is ridiculous since there are only so many notes an instrument can produce and a limited number of ways the human body can bend and move. Imagine the litigious nightmare if the angle and pose of a photo were subject to copyright.