VG Frequency

Tokyograph had a good summary of the recent verbal gaffe involving J-pop star (and real Emotion/1000 Words Japanese language vocalist) Koda Kumi, and her January 31 appearance on All Night Nippon:

The comment came on Tuesday night while Koda was hosting “All Night Nippon.” The topic of her manager’s marriage came up, and Koda was asked about when her manager was planning to have children. She made a seemingly light-hearted reply that “when women turn 35, their amniotic fluid goes rotten, so I’d like them to have a child by 35.”

Hahaha! While I’m not personally offended, she clearly put a major foot in her mouth, resulting in:

*Record company Avex Group halting all marketing of her latest album, Kingdom, released on January 30 and already #1 on both the Oricon Weekly chart and Unified World Chart
*Cosmetic company Kosé pulling her image from all marketing of it Visée brand
*Kumi going on a self-imposed hiatus until at least the end of February

And what flub would be incomplete without a televised apology? That was in full effect, broadcast by FNN, the Fuji News Network. Before some overly negative editorializing on Kumi’s character, Random J of gaming and anime blog Dark Diamond had at least one good comment on the televised apology itself:

Even if you can’t understand Japanese, the language of ’shame’ and ‘paying for it’ is pretty universal.

We’ll see how Kumi eventually emerges from the controversy. If she can continue to sell things in spite of the flippant comment, she’ll be all good. Doesn’t sound like it should be a dealbreaker to me. Besides, she’ll eventually turn 35 herself, so she’s got plenty of time to ponder over the potential rotting of her own womb.

After a lengthy search involving scores of law enforcement agents, BT’s daughter, 3 1/2-year-old Kaia Transeau has been found, allegedly abducted by her mother Ashley Duffy in December.

This past Tuesday, the BTmusic.com forums had this brief message notifying fans of the end of the alleged kidnapping incident (corrected for typos):

Thank you all for your prayers, well wishes, and support!

This evening Kaia was found!!

Ashley was arrested, and a warrant executed.

Karen Durrett [Editor’s note: Ashley’s mother] is also being interrogated by Federal Marshals.

Kaia right now is with CPS, being prepared to being reunited with BT.

In one of the very few times you’ll ever find me linking to TMZ, TMZ.com had the scoop on the rescue. However, Maryland news outlet The Gazette has since clarified that the legal aspects of the case, particularly custody, have been pretty murky, resulting in Duffy being cleared of her abduction charges. ABC News provided an even more in-depth breakdown of the case earlier today that’s a must read for a better grasp of the events.

With that said, who knows what the future will hold in this custody case, since there’s currently no organized agreement for shared custody of Kaia between BT and Duffy. When we hear more, we’ll keep you posted.

In an almost ironic follow-up to the madfiddler plagiarism situation a few days ago, OverClocked ReMix’s latest album, the Final Fantasy VII tribute Voices of the Lifestream, was plagiarized on October 9 by 22-year-old Tijuana, Baja California resident Israel Alcántar González, otherwise known as DjNeTisra.

In an October 10 blog post (in Spanish, and has since been deleted), González claimed 13 of Voices‘ tracks as a new album called Materia 2007, complete with new album cover. In an audacious facade, González fabricated reasons for creating the songs, attributing bLiNd & Leifo’s track “Fading Entity” as being inspired by the “plight of the planet” in the face of pollution and global warming. González also claimed that other remixes would follow “with a lot of dedication,” implying plans to gradually use other arrangements stolen from the 45-track album as new releases.

A fan from the Tijuana area who personally knew González had heard of the release of Materia 2007 and passed along the news to another friend, who instantly recognized the album as being stolen from OC ReMix and immediately notified site creator David “djpretzel” Lloyd, who then threw out a forum message condemning the artistic theft.

González was confronted that night via MSN chat by album contributor Juan “Sixto Sounds” Medrano, a Texan, a Spanish speaker and one of the victims of the plagiarism. After questioning González on whether he made the tracks himself and subsequently confronting him about the theft, González quickly closed the chat session.

OC ReMix Judge and Voices contributor Larry “Liontamer” Oji then flooded DjNeTisra’s blogs and art galleries with information about the plagiarism, resulting in access to those areas promptly being removed by González. Liontamer and Sixto then registered at a local website for LAN gaming, LAN Party Tijuana (where González is an administrator) and proceeded to post information of the theft on every forum where González did not have administrative access.

Within minutes, González, who is bilingual, acknowledged his theft of Voices of the Lifestream and apologized profusely for the plagiarism, hoping to stop the confrontation:

About the Album, i feel very very sry about that. I mean, Really sry making all those fake credits about me and my music.

i will put those tracks with his orignal composers in my blog so people can see that is your own work, not mine.

So far, no acknowledgment of these actions or proper credit for the album has actually shown up on González’s blog. 60 minutes after the initial confrontation by Sixto, González finally deleted the stolen tracks, along with several folders worth of other tracks he had stolen credit for since mid-2006, including tracks from OC ReMix, VGMix and Anime Remix. Among many other artists, González had also been plagiarizing the work of Chris “goat” Gates, attempting to pass off most of goat’s discography as an album called “GOAT” in order to justify the music’s identification tags, even going so far as saying he would submit the works to both OC ReMix and VGMix in the future.

Based on further information from the Tijuana source, González claims he is a DJ and would hand out mix CDs of music he claimed as his own to girls in order to impress them, as well as frequenting Spanish anime fan forums under the DjNeTisra name to promote his stolen music. As early as 2005 González linked to OC ReMix and OCR webradio station Ormgas.com on his old blog.

***Editor’s note: We’re so tempted…

Ever wanted to see a fiddler really get mad? Steal his work.

Composer & sound designer, Stuck In D’80s member, and electric violinist Mark “madfiddler” Knight recently caught a scam artist stealing his work and hosting as his own on MySpace. Today, after putting up a brief story about the incident at his own website, Mark put out a MySpace blog and bulletin to spread the word. From the bulletin:

Hi there, I’m sending this out just to prove how untrustworthy the internet can be, and I’m well p!$$ed off about it. Check out this profile of Jeremy Sharp…

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=97810588

It came to my attention recently, that Jeremy has included one of my electric violin tunes on his MySpace profile claiming that it is his.

The track in question he calls “Effects on Strings” and is in fact a track I wrote in 2005, simply called “Rock Improv” - which you can download the mp3 from http://www.madfiddler.co.uk/audio/madfiddler_rock_improv_01.mp3

If copyright comes into question, I can supply the Cubase SX3 project file, and details of the synthesizers used to create this track, and concise details on the effects used to create the violin sound.

Knowing what I know, in that Jeremy neither composed nor performed on this track, I would also question which other tracks on his MySpace profile are actually his.

Rather than confront Jeremy directly, I have chosen to embarrass him as much as I can through the internet. I own the Fiddle and Alternative Strings Forum which is the largest online community for electric violinists, and am also well known on the manufacturer’s sites that Jeremy claims to play instruments of.

I would ask of you that you pass this message around to any music professionals that you know, if just to prove that with the internet what you see isn’t necessarily what you get.

Thanks for your time,

Mark Knight / www.madfiddler.co.uk

madfiddler’s gone as far as rehosting “Rock Improv” as his featured track on his MySpace page in order to drive the point home. We do our part at VG Frequency to help protect artists in the VGM arrangement community, so good luck to Mark as he works to clamp down further on the plagiarism of his music.

***Update from madfiddler later that day via MySpace:

Hi peeps,

Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone for their comments, pm’s of support, and spreading the word. Being one that doesn’t read bulletins much, I didn’t expect to wake up this morning spending a couple of hours reply to people regarding this matter. So thanks very much for that :)

It seems, that Jeremy did find out, that I had found out. Heck, I’m pretty stupid sometimes, he may have even been my myspace friend and read the bulletin.

So, all the music files on his profile disappeared, which makes me pretty certain that the other 3 tracks were actually owned by at least one other person. Then, the page was re-branded to “the devil” , all the friends deleted and comments regarding to the music on the page deleted.

I’ve also been tipped off that he’s started another myspace profile with this URL

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=189461694

Now, I think my job is done. There’s no need to start blasting the new profile with disapproving messages. However, keep an eye on it. Maybe he’s learnt his lesson, maybe he hasn’t and it’ll be YOUR music appearing on his page next time.

Funny really, a simply open apology from Jeremy on his page would have put a stop to all this straight away. Honesty prevails.

It’s likely that any further updates will just be posted on my blog.

Job done, thank you very much and goodnight :)

VG Frequency #063: We Know Drama Squad
Larry Oji - WMRE (Emory University Student Radio; Atlanta, GA)
Saturday, September 24, 2005 / 10:10 PM - 3:57 AM EDT
Liontamer f/Flik, Joe Cam, Mustin, OverCoat, Mythril Nazgul & Rexy
Christian Pacaud: “How about a project that’d be all drama, no music? Like, fake tracklist, just people bitching against each others. :P”
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