There’s a bit of controversy brewing online around a piece of music used to promote Disney’s free mobile 8-bit art app Pixel’d. Fans of the band Anamanaguchi noticed that the music used in a video to promote Disney’s App was the same as Anamanaguchi’s song “Jetpack Blues Sunset Hues.”
Here are the two songs back to back. Let your own ears decide:
Other then some modulations in tone and key, the two songs sound very much alike to me. I hear the same melody and some of the same video game samples for sure. My guess is that Disney bought or licensed a library of music it had had been told was cleared for use in online promotion, but whomever created the original library sampled the song. That doesn’t make it right, but it does make it easier to explain.
The band’s fans pointed out the unauthorized use on the video’s comments on YouTube and they’ve been giving the video a thumbs down as well, so far over 2300 negatives have been delivered. Disney has since removed the negative comments, which I think is the wrong move. It’s okay to remove comments that violate terms of service, are offensive, or threatening. But to attempt to hide legitimate complaints is a bad move.
Disney needs to be more transparent in this case. Offer to look into the situation and make it right if there is was an unintentional use of the band’s song. Once you’ve done that, you can then say, we’ll take this conversation offline and provide an email address for the offended party to communicate directly.
There is likely a lot of overlap between fans of 8-Bit sound and fans of pixel art. They both share the same video game roots. The band even seemed amenable to a peace offering from Disney.
https://twitter.com/anamanaguchi/status/247827672904912896
This really had the potential to be a huge win for both Disney and Anamanaguchi. It still can, so I hope Disney is already working to make it right. Has anyone downloaded the free PIXEL’D app? Is the same music used in the App? What do you think Disney should do when confronted with the evidence?
(H/T Throw The Dice and Play Nice blog)
Thanks very much for the hat tip John!
Well written piece here, good editorial.
I downloaded the app and from what I’ve heard from the game, it doesn’t seem to use music at all. From what I gather, they just used it for advertising purposes.
In all honesty, both parties seem to be dealing with this immaturely. Disney shouldn’t be removing comments on youtube and, based on their twitter message, Anamanaguchi shouldn’t be making comments like that (if he was kidding or not).
I hope both parties create a conclusion to this mess in a civil manner.
Did you see what sort of comments they are removing? People or some computer script (more likely) is spamming “JETPACK BLUES SUNSET HUES.” Nothing else. Just that. I think that SPAM is valid at being removed…
As for Disney’s fault here? If it is not licensed, the song probably should be. If it was licensed as part of some package then they are fine.
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