Quick everyone, What Does The Fox Say? Ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding? Well, yes it does. But according to M4SONIC it also says plagiarism; no worries, it was done so without malicious intent. The up and coming Australian DJ broke it down for inthemix saying:
“I was over in the US with a production duo called Stargate working with Sia and Nadia Ali,” M4SONIC said. “One of the beats that I made we kinda put to one side as it wasn’t really going anywhere. I’d totally forgotten about the track until I stumbled across The Fox video on YouTube. It turned out that Tor and Mikkel (Stargate), who are Norwegian, are friends with Bård and Vegard Ylvisåker (Ylvis). Stargate gave Ylvis a copy of the beat that we made to use for a video they were doing to launch their comedy show in Norway. I think the whole thing kinda ‘snowballed’ and was an accident on their side as well. No one really thought it would be a top 10 Billboard track!
“I literally had no idea that the track I’d left in the US was being used. I got in touch with Stargate and my publisher SonyATV and they negotiated a royalties deal on my behalf. It was all last minute as I don’t think anyone expected the video to go viral.”
While this story had a very happy ending it brings up thoughts of recent news pieces where EDM artists have been totally ripped off. It’s nice to hear a happy ending of a situation like this one, with M4SONIC able to have a laugh at the whole thing saying that:
“so long as people understand that it is Ylvis poking fun at the commercial EDM sound and that wasn’t my intention when I made the beat” and that ” I think the fact that people are taking the time to parody this type of music is just an indication of the success of the electronic music scene in recent times”.
A very professional response from a budding sensation, hopefully some people in the industry can take notice of it and learn to compromise, own up to things that have happened and take the high road.
