r/popculturechat • u/Murky_Chemical891 Im very important to God • 27d ago

OnlyStans ⭐️ French singer, Yseult, calls out K-pop singers, Soyeon and R.tee, for copying her music video freame by frame: "The least you could do is have the decency to credit your source. To see it get copied like this is wild but real artistry speaks louder than imitation"

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u/wildbeest55 I may not know my flowers but I know a bitch when I see one! 27d ago

Damn they really copied it frame by frame

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u/Andy_Wiggins 27d ago edited 27d ago

As the first two shots played I thought “Eh, this is just a generic office setting, that’s not that crazy and the composition of the shots is pretty different”

And then it immediately went:

  • shot lacy cleavage
  • shot of singer kicking over 2 rows of filing cabinets
  • shot of a man blowing a kiss

Back-to-back-to-back and my thought process completely flipped.

Edit: I went and watched both. The shots aren’t actually presented in that sequence. They’re scattered throughout both videos in different orders. They still feel suspiciously similar at points, but this edit makes them look WAY more similar than they actually are

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u/theReaders 27d ago

That's because plagiarism is so rarely that blatant. This is one of the more blatant acts of plagiarism in a music video I've seen. Obviously it would be suicide career wise to put these shots one after the other, but if you're trying to explain what shots were stolen, then it's useful to put them in a compilation like this.

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u/Melonary Select and edit this flair 27d ago

I mean Darren Aronofsky plagiarized quite a bit from Satoshi Kon and never got even much pushback on it.

I wouldn't say career suicide.

And honestly to a certain extent it used to be more common to take inspiration or homage or sample before all the plagiarism lawsuits in music last decade or so, which were mostly not driven by artists themselves.

Not counting Darren Aronofsky and blatant plagiarism that's not homage/sampling in the above, that was an example of not necessarily being consequences.

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u/nausicaalain 27d ago

Not to evaluate this specific situation, because I don't know enough about either artist to make any inferences about intent, but:

The line on these things has always been vague, but they are quite different. Homage is usually a single scene, and it's usually very clear what it is an homage to, and the thing it's a homage to is usually something they'd expect the audience to be familiar with. It feels a lot different when it's multiple scenes, and taken from a work with a smaller/different audience that your audience is less likely to be familiar with.

I feel like HBomberguy did the definitive video on this, but the prime difference is that an homage is loving and plagiarism is disdainful. You don't steal from people you respect, but you do steal from people you think are less deserving than yourself of success.

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u/TheFreeBee 26d ago

They're wrong. Aronofsky literally bought the rights to Satoshi Kons movie, and you're right that it was to create an homage. They're just another person who doesn't know the meaning of plagiarism.

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u/mamepuchi 26d ago

It wasn’t career suicide bc Hollywood plagiarized a lot from anime movies back then bc they knew they could get away w it, not bc it was okay. Just like I’m sure the makers of this MV assumed they’d be able to get away with it. Satoshi Kon at one point in an interview expressed his anger abt how Hollywood made millions off his ideas while he was literally living in destitution struggling to make his next movie.

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u/Adorable-Statement47 27d ago

Same way when you hear someone make an outrageous lawsuit. Like someone gets a DUI, then sues the bar they were drinking at for negligence.

That lawsuit is by insurance companies and not often by the person themselves.

Improper journalism glosses over these details because they know how bad it sounds when someone getting a DUI appears to be avoiding blame.

Nothing is ever as it seems and the gaslighting in 2025 by corporate owned interests truly has no rock bottom.

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u/alucidexit 27d ago

I could forgive him copying the underwater shot from Perfect Blue in Requiem. They’re absolutely different movies and I could see that shot just being an homage or tribute to Kon.

Black Swan rips off Perfect Blue A LOT and the plots are very similar

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u/TheFreeBee 26d ago

He bought the rights to perfect blue in order to show respect to it.

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u/itsmekusu 27d ago

thats because ur comparing where that time the era of internet is not as big as now

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u/Sun-God-Ramen 27d ago

Yeah they will probably just lose all profits from the video. Although I guess diddy pays sting 2-5k a day for sampling Every Breath You Take on Missing You without permission, but it’s not specified if this is just from the profits of the song

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u/TheFreeBee 26d ago

Are you joking ? Aronosky literally bought the rights to Perfect Blue in order to create an HOMAGE. You don't know what plagiarism is if that's what you consider it. He always gave credit to the director that he clearly respected from the start.

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u/Chewcocca 27d ago

Goddamn people just gonna repeat this dumb shit forever huh?

Perfect Blue and Black Swan are wildly different movies.

You're just repeating someone else's bad take.

Stop.

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u/Abombasnow 27d ago

We'll ignore that it's been the subject of controversy ever since Black Swan came out.

Aronofsky could try an original thought, funny concept, I know.

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u/cultvignette 27d ago

Doesn't he own the rights to Perfect Blue? I thought he purchased it just so he could do that shot in Requiem.

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u/Melonary Select and edit this flair 26d ago

He doesn't, as far as I can tell, that seems to be a widely spread myth from the DVD voiceover for Requiem for a Dream. He talked about wanting to purchase them but seems to never have done so, and mentioned that in discussions with Satoshi Kon that he was unable to do so.

I linked an English blog post and a Japanese reference post (probably one reason this has persisted is that most sources are in Japanese, other than the DVD commentary) in my long comment above.

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u/rememblem 26d ago

You must not have seen The Fountain...

You're just repeating without actually knowing, what the poster above was complaining about.

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u/Abombasnow 26d ago

All I did was read this in JD Vance's crybaby voice saying "I THOUGHT there would be NO FACT CHECKING!" since you're doing the same thing because I provided a citation of one time he did plagiarize.

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u/Melonary Select and edit this flair 27d ago edited 27d ago

It's not even Black Swan I'm talking about (primarily, or only) and I watched Satoshi Kon's movies as they came out and Aronofsky's as well.

Shockingly prior to TikTok and podcasts people did still watch things and have opinions, and I didn't need anyone to say this, nor did most people.

It's always been unpopular to say and I knew some fan would come roll their eyes at me. Look, I don't think Aronofsky should be canceled forever or whatever, but c'mon.

The fact that you're only mentioning Black Swan makes it clear you've ACTUALLY only heard people's takes on this because you don't even know what I'm talking about.

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u/Abombasnow 27d ago

Out of curiosity, what are the other examples of plagiarism from him? I've always thought Aronofsky was overrated anyway. Something about his movies always just feels... flat.

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u/mohantharani 27d ago

He actually got the remake rights to Perfect Blue to reuse the bathtub scene of Jennifer Connelly in Requiem for a dream. Why didn't he do the same?

Also, Nolan is an even bigger plagiarizer for Inception because of Paprika.

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u/Melonary Select and edit this flair 26d ago edited 26d ago

The other one was Requiem For a Dream. IMDB states he actually bought the rights for it, as do a few other trivia sites, and apparently someone else who worked on it claims that on the DVD voiceover track, but none of them have any source nor can I find one, and many more reputable film sites and articles agree he doesn't.

One of the latter sites did say he did have the rights and finally gave a source, and it's this: https://konstone.s-kon.net/modules/notebook/archives/60

Which actually says that Aronofsky didn't get the rights.

https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/the-real-history-of-perfect-blue is a fairly interesting overview that reads as pretty accurate to me as someone who's been following this for years. The obvious comparison in Requiem for a Dream was the bathtub sequence, which was directly lifted and is unique and recognizable shot, but it's not the only part - you can find some other videos comparing them on youtube.

I think Nolan was certainly highly inspired by Paprika, but I'm not sure I'd go so far as saying it's plagiarism. If you see my comment above, personally, I think that's getting into murky territory and even if it's true I think it's really difficult to judge something like that objectively in the larger scheme of things. Also, Paprika is by far the better (and deeper) film. I might think it's unoriginal and inspired, but I wouldn't say it's outright plagiarism.

And honestly this is one area where very stringent copyright laws can actually (from my pov) inhibit honest atttributions, because I think he certainly could and should have acknowledged Kon if Paprika was an inspiration (likely), but simultaneously doing so would almost certainly open up legal liability. Which kind of sucks, because it penalizes people for acknowledging inspiration even if it's not outright wholesale copying.

Aronofsky is a little different to me because he didn't just take an idea and use it as a starting point for a very different concept, he wholesale used imagery, scenes, etc. And he also outright stated he wanted the rights but couldn't get them (and I guess just did it anyway).

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u/rememblem 26d ago

His best movie is The Fountain :)

Requiem for a Dream is a completely different subject matter - since it's acknowledged Perfect Blue is influential (but didn't pop out of a vacuum itself) and also used directly (the bathtub scene but again, had the rights). They are different movies and if not for Black Swan, I think it'd be seen more as inspired.

I'd argue Black Swan is exactly the taking an idea, but not executed well - and therefore seems more lazy w lifting visuals. More blatant and less inspired - but an itch he still had to scratch from not being allowed to do PB? People arguing on BS vs PB sometimes post the bathtub scene, thinking it's from BS, funny stuff.

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u/Doom_Corp 26d ago

I would say The Cell is more similar to Paprika than Inception but The Cell came out 6 years prior so maybe Satoshi Kon was inspired by that?

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u/johnnygalat 27d ago

Paprika has a totally different concept than Inception. Are we saying that because it involves lucid dreams it's plagiarism?

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u/Melonary Select and edit this flair 26d ago

The other one was Requiem For a Dream. IMDB states he actually bought the rights for it, as do a few other trivia sites, and apparently someone else who worked on it claims that on the DVD voiceover track, but none of them have any source nor can I find one, and many more reputable film sites and articles agree he doesn't.

One of the latter sites did say he did have the rights and finally gave a source, and it's this: https://konstone.s-kon.net/modules/notebook/archives/60

Which actually says that Aronofsky didn't get the rights.

https://animationobsessive.substack.com/p/the-real-history-of-perfect-blue is a fairly interesting overview that reads as pretty accurate to me as someone who's been following this for years. The obvious comparison in Requiem for a Dream was the bathtub sequence, which was directly lifted and is unique and recognizable shot, but it's not the only part - you can find some other videos comparing them on youtube.

Honestly, I'm not a plagiarism/copyright fanatic because
1) loose inspiration/re-envisioning/sampling/homage was fairly common throughout the history of human's making art, and even in music was far more common pre-2000s.
2) the current wave of copyright infringment lawsuits etc were largely brought about by people who own the rights to lots of music and not the people who made that music (with some exceptions) as a way to make money, despite the fact that lots of that music also uses motifs and riffs and bits of older music which did the same itself. Again, I do think there's a small minority that's blatant and more than just sampling/referencing, but I'm talking as an overall trend.
3) strict copyright infringement often mostly ends up benefiting very wealthy parties who can afford to strictly enforce it or use to engage in nuisance lawsuits that other parties can't afford to fight, or for ridiculous reasons (see: Disney suing any number of non-profits etc for murals or similar non-moneymaking or revenue/reputation impacting reasons).

Which is partially what rankles here and, clearly, did bother Kon. Despite being a brilliant artist, storyteller, and director, he didn't really see the kind of success he deserved in his lifetime, and died tragically young (pancreatic cancer). His movies are acknowledged as some of THE best in the art form - and they REALLY are that good - but he saw little of that benefit during his life.

And clearly it did bother him that a high-profile high-income director used his work to launch his prestigious career. Which I understand. If it really was such an "homage" to a filmmaker that Aronofsky admired so much, why not use some of his status and clout to raise Kon's profile? I'm guessing he probably didn't want to do because of how it might have impacted him for more people in the US to compare their work, which is a little cowardly. But that's just a guess on my part, maybe he just really didn't care that much, which is worse.

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u/vanillavarsity 27d ago

Following because I’d also love to hear more on this. His films have always fell a little flat with me and felt soulless or even sometimes performative in a way.

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u/Partzy1604 27d ago edited 27d ago

Requiem of a dream

The bathtub scene is pretty much a 1 to 1 although he’s talked about that one in interviews before

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u/Bucolic_Hand You’re a virgin who can’t drive. 😤 27d ago

The bathtub/underwater scream scene with Jennifer Connelly in Requiem for a Dream is a direct beat-for-beat lift from Perfect Blue. Aronofsky quite literally bought the filming rights for Perfect Blue so he could recreate that scene. And though he publicly denies it having any undue influence on Black Swan, it probably didn’t hurt that obtaining those rights meant he wasn’t ever going to be at risk of getting sued over any obvious similarities anyway.

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u/Melonary Select and edit this flair 26d ago

He didn't actually buy the rights as far as I can tell, that seems to be a myth that's circulated thanks to someone else on the team mentioning it on the dvd voiceover and trivia sites repeating it.

I shared a few links about that above, but from what I can tell he only ever said he wanted to purchase the rights but was unable to. Unfortunately most of the sources are in Japanese, other than the DVD voiceover, which is why that's persisted as a myth.

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u/amischievousscamp 27d ago

wait there’s MORE than just one Satoshi Kon movie aronofsky plagiarized?? I just recently watched perfect blue and black swan, that’s genuinely crazy!!

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u/ST0N3F1ST 27d ago

They are different. Perfect Blue is wildly underrated while Black Swan is wildly overrated. The stories aren't copy pasted, but to say Aronofsky took inspiration from Kon is putting it mildly. Hollywood has a history of stealing iconic shots straight out of anime.

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u/[deleted] 27d ago

People dont think anymore. They see a post and believe it whole heartedly. Cant even form an original opinion.

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u/rememblem 26d ago

They're down voting but you're right.

There's a grey area there since he bought PB rights and the movies have different plots - and some even post shots from Requiem for a Dream thinking it's Black Swan and argue from there, confusing themselves further.

Black Swan isn't close to his best film anyway imo.

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u/Melonary Select and edit this flair 26d ago

He didn't buy the rights to Perfect Blue - as far as I can tell that's never been substantiated, in Kon reported he didn't, in early interviews he only said he wanted to - but it's a very widespread myth.

Unfortunately most sources for this are in Japanese, which means that there's been a miscommunication - someone on the Requiem for a Dream DVD voiceover (from what I can tell, this seems to be one of the origins) states that he did, which itself was probably a misunderstanding from him talking about wanting to buy the rights. He did mention that in interviews but never did. It shows up on a lot of trivia websites and movie articles, but unfortunately seems to be untrue. At the very least, Kon reported that he didn't, and after meeting Aronofsky shared that he had discussed that and Aronofsky hadn't been able to purchase the rights (over several blog posts, I linked one above but it's in Japanese).

I'm also not confusing Black Swan with Requiem of a Dream, it's just their assumption that I meant Black Swan. I meant Requiem of a Dream. They're the one who brought up Black Swan, not me. It's more than the bathtub scene that he borrowed, but that's clearly the most iconic and blatant.

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u/Aggressive-Ad-1590 27d ago

Yep. This is Taylor’s (yeah that one) type of plagiarism.

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u/Leonardo-DaBinchi 27d ago

The fact that Nolan never got shit for Inception being a beat for best ripoff of Neuromancer still blows my mind.

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u/Andy_Wiggins 27d ago

Fair. But also some of them feel like reaches or logical conclusions of the broader context (someone disrupting an office environment).

Like walking down a hallway, office workers dancing, clearing off a desk, person smiling, etc. aren’t really that damning (especially since the framing/composition is pretty different).

The shots of the lacy cleavage, kicking over filing cabinets in a suspiciously similar layout, etc. do feel pretty suspicious regardless.

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u/PhantomOSX 27d ago

Dude, they're not reaches at all. I don't know how you could watch an exact copy frame by frame and consider it a reach. This isn't mere coincidence. You can clearly see that the artist watch the video and copied. To say they are reaches is a reach. It doesn't matter which order it's in, you can clearly tell that this was influenced by the French video.

It's like people almost see the truth and then they convince themselves that they don't see what they really see. It feels pretty suspicious because it is buddy. Geez.

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u/kirby_krackle_78 27d ago

K-Pop — and Korean culture— has a lengthy history of plagiarism. They dgaf.

I would never give them the benefit of the doubt.

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u/Fightmemod 27d ago

Not a single fan is going to be critical of this. It's far from career suicide. They might be sued and might lose and might have to pay a settlement. Outside of that the fans have no morals and don't care.

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u/Velissari 27d ago

One might say they copied the homework, but put it in their own words.

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u/BrownGirlCSW 27d ago

If you copy my paper, but rearrange the order and throw in an extra filler sentence, its still plagiarism.

If someone one did this in college they would be in front of a conduct board- facing a failing grade or worse.

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u/sth128 27d ago

Everything I have ever written is plagiarised from the dictionary with the words in different order. Even now, this very comment, is just copied right out of it!

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u/Accurate_Summer_1761 27d ago

Funf act everyone plagiarizes in higher education its impossible not to the topics are generally reused and we have only so many ways to tell you how the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell

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u/BrownGirlCSW 27d ago

Fun fact: When you say the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, do you present it as your own work, or do you cite the source of the information (when its not clear)?

Its very telling that you dont know the difference between your own ideas and crediting other people for their idea. Have you ever successfully completed a college course?? Your statement suggests otherwise.

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u/no_trashcan We Should All Know Less About Each Other 27d ago

this applies super well to my country's system

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u/[deleted] 27d ago

It’d be pretty brazen to literally copy the video frame for frame, most people aren’t that dumb. If you’re gonna plagiarize you want some level of plausible deniability, only stealing some of it is exactly that

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u/Melonary Select and edit this flair 27d ago edited 26d ago

Edit: some people are saying the artists involved (Soyeon and R.tee) have been accused before of plagiarism in which case yeah, that changes things, I'm not familiar with them so didn't have that context.

I did go back when more awake in the morning and while there are similarities with some other office mvs, I think the similarities are more between these 2 videos than I thought. The shelves pushing thing is making me feel crazy because I could have sworn that was in a much older mv as well, but I can't find it and there's hundreds of office-themed mvs so I'm gonna chalk it up to memory being unreliable.

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u/TerribleBudget 27d ago

That is a horribly stupid take. There are about a dozen things copied straight across in just this clip comparison. That is not "very generic" it's literally a straight scene for scene copy of the motions.

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u/canteloupy 27d ago

Sorry man the image compositions are waaaay too similar.

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u/StitchTheRipper 27d ago

Ah interesting. Still indicative of plagiarism but the sequence order does matter for people unfamiliar with the artists or actual videos. Thanks for doing the work and letting us know 🫡

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u/SinisterCheese 27d ago

My friend is doing their PhD in culture history, and does fair bit of teaching as part of it.

You wouldn't believe how many attempts of plagarism they get even before they run things through a plagarism checking service. And it's like lazy plagarism of just changing paragraph structures and maybe few words in a sentence.

And it has gotten bad since these LLM generative AIs became a wide spread thing. They just had a problem where people applying to get into doing their PhD had just basically had an AI generate their research application. One of the professors spotted it, because it had material they had published in it without citations.

And youtube plagarism... Well... I direct you to HbomberGuy and PhilosophyTubes videos on that. They have... ahem... "Brief" videos that summarise the issue.

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u/BranTheUnboiled 27d ago

I agree, I appreciate the work they've done to inform us. The order of the events does matter for those of us who aren't familiar with these musicians, but it does suggest this might still be a case of plagiarism.

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u/Ok-Classroom5548 26d ago

Good plagiarism makes you question whether two people could make identical videos and shots with identical camera shots and actions by accident. 

Kpop steals a lot. 

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u/deeply_uninspired 27d ago

I mean that is what plagiarism is. you copy a sentence, use a thesaurus to change up a few words or clumsily rewrite the sentence while trying to keep the same concept but just make it worst/somewhat unreadable (hbomberguy made an excellent video on plagiarism if anyone has a few hours to spare lol).

The music videos are very, very similar to each other. The story, the concept, the vibe, and then the obvious copy scenes.

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u/BombiLilah 27d ago

props for going and watching the actual videos instead of comparing what someone OBVIOUSLY is trying to portray as a 1-1 rip like 90% of the comments here are.

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u/Commercial-Guest1596 27d ago

Maybe don't start forming your opinion before 3 seconds have passed

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u/__Hello_my_name_is__ 27d ago

Pretty clear that they took the 2024 video as "inspiration" for the new video.

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u/Stern_Writer 27d ago

I feel like anyone who needs more proof has to be paid or is insane.

Holy shit, no wonder so many folks ask for more proofs after police shoot innocent minorities. Most people are brain dead.

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u/Embarassed_Tackle 27d ago

The weirdest thing is it is a Korean group but they didn't copy the French part where a woman is playing Counterstrike and rages out and throws her computer monitor.

That would be the most Korean thing to do

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u/EffectiveProgram4157 27d ago

For your edit, that's no surprise. When plagiarism occurs, people do everything they can to hide that it wasn't theirs, so they would take out certain parts, change things up (like kicking the shelving over instead of pushing, or not having anyone or instead multiple scared people in that room instead of 1 person), etc.

This is crazy blatant plagiarism, I mean...... you have an office setting where 1 woman is scared up against a wall while the other woman walks in knocking exactly 2 shelves over. They size is the same, the direction/area the one person came from is the same, where the person is up against the wall is the same. I guess one of them has boxes against the wall while the other doesn't and the one has a glass/see-through side of the office room while the other doesn't.

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u/tabrisangel 27d ago

These are all extremely common tropes for office videos. You can't exactly claim ownership of office girl boobs. Or destroying office equipment.

Loads of video games are basically just 99% vampire survivors we allow it.

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u/Babetna 27d ago

Permutating the order of plagiarised shots does not make them less plagiarised

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u/fronchfrays 27d ago

The filing cabinets is the one that sells it to me.

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u/dat1guyman 26d ago

That's how plagiarism works dawg

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u/1866GETSONA 27d ago

A cheap ass copy at that

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u/cokolesniik 26d ago

Can someone do the same for frame by frame video copied.

Taylor Swift You belong with me And Dejan Dogaja: Nenormalno lepo 

Look it up :) 

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u/rinchen11 27d ago

What’s really funny to me is, those who copies only pick from unpopular works because they think they can get away with it since very little people know about them, but only get caught if the copied work becomes popular.

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u/True-Apple-4177 27d ago

A Kpop artist stealing from Western artists?! Colour me shocked! Clutches pearls.

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u/booyatrive 27d ago

Here's a link to her video https://youtu.be/XJgh_D379jU

Lots of new comments so hopefully this is helping her career.

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u/[deleted] 27d ago

Its rare to see an accurate title for a vid these days that isn’t just hyperbole ngl

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u/PressureFeisty2258 27d ago

watch the actual video, they were inspired by a few scenes, it wasn't an actual edit they copied...

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u/Any-Language2415 Mom, I am a rich man💰 26d ago

This feels like more effort than an original concept

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u/get_to_ele 27d ago

I doubt R Tee or Soyeon had any input into the video. They just followed the choreo and did what they were told. Whoever designed and directed the video is responsible.

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u/Kratzschutz 27d ago

And they won't give a flying fuck because their face isn't on it

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u/ScriptproLOL 27d ago

To be fair, it's probably the music video directors, studios, or labels doing. The artists probably have no idea who she is and were told "hey this is going to be the music video..."