Book cover art original (left); CD cover art (right)
You may not know Charles Swindoll, but the Philippine band True Faith does. Proof of this is the similarity of their cover art. With Charles, the evidence is his book cover. True Faith, on the other hand, has its CD cover. The anomaly here is that Charles' book was released two years before True Faith did their album. My friend pointed out the uncanny similarities of the usage of the colors red and black, the white backdrop and, of course, the rose image.
In a press release for Sandwich in one of its albums, lead vocalist Raimund Marasigan was quoted to have said that they intended to have listening parties for their close friends before including new songs in any of their albums to make sure that their outputs have no similarity to any exisiting singles out there. He may be referring to music listeners' contention about their single Nahuhulog. The reference is Jane's Addiction's Jane Says song.
(top) The original art; (bottom) The alleged theft
The band Cute Is What We Aim For allegedly has its Rotation CD cover ripped off from Alphabet Arm Design's Counting Crows t-shirt merchandise. The CD was released in 2008 while the Counting Crows shirt designers produced their merchandise in 2004. The design agency alleges that the band or its reps contacted them for a possible design project for the band's next album. After much deliberation, the project didn't pull through. Then, later, lo and behold, Rotation.
These days originality in the art and design world is a high value commodity. Maybe this principle has led some practitioners and poseurs to toss it out the window and build on someone's art work, instead. No worries. Art vigilance is my expertise and I am the Art Voyeur at your service. I am peering into secret windows to see what no one else sees...