It’s no secret that we at Meet You At The Show are big fans of the fun-lovin’ Montreal band, Malajube. So we were deeply upset to see that up and coming New York singer song-writer Katie Costello has plagiarized one of Malajube’s songs. Not only did she plagiarize the song, but she also made a eerily similar video to go along with it.
The song in question is Malajube’s “Ton Plat Favori” from their 2006 release, Tompe-l’oeil. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Katie Costello, or her 2008 debut album, Kaleidoscope Machine, but the album’s title track has pretty much identical music as the Malajube song, which was written two years before. Not only that, but the video that Costello created for the song is almost exactly the same as Malajube’s video for “Ton Plat Favori”. Costello released this statement via twitter:
“I really wish I could say so much, but alas I only have 140 characters. Devastated & disappointed in the person I co-wrote the song with.”
Costello has recently removed the video from Youtube and Vimeo, but thanks to Perez Hilton you can still see what we are talking about.
That’s pretty shocking…I wonder what those involved were thinking…
Posted by Amelia Robitaille
wow.
Jeremy Herman
Wow….Vive Internet! et vive le Quebec libre…
Je m’exprime ici en mon nom en tant que realisateur du Clip de Katie Costello “Kaleidoscope Machine”.
Ce clip a ete realise avec tres peu de moyen, d’ailleurs Katie est loin d’etre une star ou une artiste reconnue aux Etats-Unis (en tout cas pour le moment), elle s’autoproduit et vit de ces performances dans des petites salles ou autre bars aux Etats-Unis.
Je ne peux me prononcer sur la chanson en elle meme et la source d’inspiration de la co-auteur de la chanson (que je ne connais pas), j’ai decouvert il y a quelques jours comme Katie l’existence de la chanson de Malajube “Ton Plat favori” et son clip (tres sympa par ailleurs).
La ressemblance melodique est effectivement troublante, et le “malaise” provoque par cette similitude se trouve effectivement amplifie par la meme technique d’animation en papier decoupe pour la premiere partie du clip.
Pour ma part, j’ai realise ce clip pour essayer differentes techniques d’animation, je voulais que cela soit une opportunite pour tenter de mettre en image differentes esthetiques.
Je veux bien que l’on m’accuse de plagiat seulement si cela concerne le travail de l’animatrice allemande Lotte Reiniger, les curieux pourront rechercher sur youtube ou autre plateforme et decouvrir le travail magnifique de cette pionniere de l’animation, c’est son univers et son esthetique que je cherchais a recreer.
Il s’agit de la technique d’animation la plus rudimentaire et la moins couteuse, voila pourquoi beaucoup de jeunes animateurs experimentent avec cette technique.
Je suis a l’origine des choix esthetiques et des techniques d’animation utilisee dans ce clip, et Katie m’a suivit et fait confiance dans mes choix.
Je suis le premier a etre surpris de cette drole de coincidence et m’amuse du deferlement de haine primaire de certains internautes.
Je laisse donc la parole aux quelques excites du clavier qui ont lance cette cabale loufoque contre cette jeune et talentueuse artiste qu’est Katie Costello…
Je crois qu’au final cette histoire lui fera plus de pub qu’autre chose…
PS: Les videos ont ete retires en attendant de clarifier la situation avec la co-auteur.Donc pas de conspiration maconnique la non plus…
http://www.whiteblankpage.com Kelly
Obviously both the song and the video are copies of Malajube….it may be harder today to be original, however, katie’s song is an exact copy of malajube’s melody and the video is almost identical!
cmon now? trying to excuse the video as an artistic endeavor…if you want to be artistic come up with something completely original! not a copy of something already successful
Alambic38
common…la toune présente effectivement des similarités troublantes et questionables, mais parler du vidéoclip comme étant du plagiat…on va tu accuser tout les vidéoclips présentant du stop-motion et des animations de papier découpé comme étant du plagiat? D’abord une technique, c’est fait pour être appliqué, ensuite, l’ambiance “surnaturelle” ( en anglais je dirais “eerie”) est présente dans les deux cartoon à cause du stop-motion qui nous oblige à apprécier le clip comme une histoire surnaturelle vu l’absence de gestes fluides mais en plus, c’est juste le début du clip à Castello qui est en papier découpé. Le reste n’est pas comme dans le clip à Malajube! Les deux clips présentent une ambiance “surnaturelle”, les deux présentent des éléments en papier découpés, mais on s’entends que même si c’est la même technique, c’est pas pentoute le même style!
Robyn Littleworth
Katie is a close friend of mine. I own her album. If you look at your album you will see that Kaleidascope Machine is the one song from the album NOT WRITTEN by her. This is a very sad thing, and I hope people recognize that Katie had no mal-intent, and really very little to do with this scandal. She writes incredible, original, music.
Ce Jeremy Herman est un drôle de oiseau. Il y a trop de coïncidences non seulement entre les 2 chansons mais aussi les 2 vidéos. Ça se peut qu’il a fait ce coup délibérément pour exactement avoir de la pub pour sa protègée. Comme disais si bien Sir Winston Churchill, ” talk bad or talk good but at least talk about it….. Nous vivons dans une société malade.
http://eggsfubar.bandcamp.com Eggs Fubar
if it wasnt for the “bump ba bump ba bump ba dee”
then the songs are really not the same. just throwing back to the same genre.
the videos are similar in subject matter (for lack of a better term) … but it doesnt surprise me that this flavour of music would inspire such visuals.
my verdict: not plagiarism
blown way out of proportion…
This whole thing is ridiculous.
Yes, parts of the melody are similar, if not exactly the same but Katie Costello DID NOT WRITE THE SONG!
The videos share similar style and technique, but are otherwise completely different in term of subject matter!! Open your eyes people!! Bonus, Katie Costello DID NOT DIRECT THE VIDEO!
The question remains though of whether or not Katie knew that her co-writer/video director was plagiarizing. I highly doubt it. Living in the age of YouTube and the Internet, I find it hard to believe that any self-respecting artist would openly plagiarize.
Katie Costello’s only fault is that she trusted the wrong person to collaborate with.
on behalf of Katie…
I have known Katie since middle school and I have seen how she has developed as both a singer/artist and a person. She would have never knowingly stolen the song, and if she had been influenced by Malajube, she would have given them their deserved credit. It is unfortunate that she is being viewed in this poor light when she was not even writer of the song that she sung (the writer is the culprit). And even in some cases I’m sure writers are not always 100% aware they are plagiarizing if they subconsciously pull from an obscure song that they may have heard before. (I cannot be the judge of this because I do not know the writer) I do know I have been caught by friends playing riffs from songs on my guitar when I thought I was just randomly stringing together notes that sound good.
This song is not like the blatant plagiarism as is the case in that movie Dreamgirls, and it is unfortunate when some people are glorified for songs that are not their own (case in point: Elvis Presley was not the original singer of Hound Dog, Big Mama Thornton was). I do know that Katie would not have released this song knowing it was imitating an existing song without acknowledging it, and both artists should be recognized for their original works. It is unfortunate that the melody was borrowed, but each song has its own unique message and style and should be enjoyed for that reason.
P.S. Imitation whether knowingly or not is often the highest form of flattery. This is why many bands cover songs. Malajube should revel in the fact that their melody was so influential to the true writer of Kaleidoscope Machine. But again, do not view Katie in such a poor light when she was not the writer. Look at her other work and notice that she is an accomplished and talented singer/songwriter for her own songs, who unfortunately got caught up in this sad situation due to a collaboration with another writer.
Keep your chin up Katie, you have so much to share with the world. This is just a little bump in the road.
-S
michael jalmax
i used to be in a band with katie,
she didnt steal this, i doubt she even knew who the fuck this band was anyways.
shes good, deal wid it
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