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.
This was years ago when I noticed that Kelly Clarkson's Breakaway CD design had been ripped off by an album designer in the Philippines. The album is by a young local diva named Sarah Geronimo. Notice that Kelly's CD title is Breakaway and Sarah's is Becoming. A case of the B? Then notice how the album cover pictorial and design had been tweaked a bit to distinguish from Kelly's but still managed to retain the lack of originality because of the pose. This brings me to realize that the pictorial for the album was also ripped off. The album sleeve image tries to mimic Kelly's ensemble and hairdo also. Both are clad in night gowns, has almost similar poses, hairstyles and identical backdrop design. The back cover of Sarah used a white gown maybe to veer away from the similarity with that of Kelly's in the same image which is black.
In real life, though, both are singing competition winners which may have brought Sarah Geronimo's management to assume that it's logical to copy Kelly Clarkson's CD design and pictorial.
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...
