At the end of last week, Sony uploaded one of its regular PlayStation lineup music videos on its Japanese YouTube channel. As usual, the advert featured some gorgeous animation in between all the gameplay footage. These videos are always a treat, but the latest one has run into a spot of bother. Sony has now removed said video from its channel following reports that the animations are plagiarising the work of other artists. You can watch a mirror of the video through here.
The above tweet shows the PlayStation trailer's animations on the right, and originals on the left. As you can see, the similarities are too obvious to deny. The director/animator who led the way on Sony's advert is Kevin Bao, and it's now been found that he's copied the work of others before. Additionally, Bao's page on the CONNECTION agency site has been taken down, as has his Instagram.
To us, it seems like Sony uploaded the trailer unaware of the plagiarised content. Within this Twitter thread, you can see several other examples of plagiarism by Bao. There are too many cases for all this to be coincidence. It seems the blame lies on his shoulders, but Sony will be taking some of the heat regardless.
An unusual scenario, this one, but what do you think? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below.
[source twitter.com]
Comments 8
Wow, the gall of that guy. To blatantly rip off so many artists, does he have no integrity?
It is a pity that he wasn't vetted before hand since it is mentioned that other works were plagiarised, but to be fair, that could of been discovered at the same time as this trailer so it may not have been possible.
Still, these things happen; you only have to look at IGN for example with what happened with the Dead Cells review, it is all in how they respond I suppose, and Sony have removed the offending video so hopefully it will be ok.
Kevin Bao: Em, but Your Honor, imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, right?
Judge: …
Kevin Bao: Right?
Judge: ...
Sony should take down the video and never work with that bao guy again.
@OscarHTX funny that one gets a free pass
sounds like Sony did the right thing, they hired someone to make a video for them, he plagiarized other works and once Sony found out they removed it
it's not Sony's fault he did it
I see people are blaming Sony for this when the fault is on this Bao fella.
All Sony can really do is take the video down, like they did, and maybe issue an apology?
Hopefully he'll never "work" in this industry again.
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