How did Toei Animation find out that Yamamoto stole music?

[JEFFMAN219]

Hey, guys! How did Toei Animation find out that Kenji Yamamoto was stealing other people's music for his Dragon Ball Kai score?

[MagicBox]

Well, fans had been talking about Yamamoto for a long time. Word can spread.

All of the parties involved are pretending that this scenario "never happened," so it's unlikely that we'll ever hear the full story.

The only thing that was stated was that some of Yamamoto's pieces "may infringe on the rights of third parties." Maybe someone threatened to sue. That would have been enough to get Toei's attention. But we'll never know.

[ShinGaijin]

Hey guys how did Toai animation find out that Kenji Yamamoto was stealing other peoples music for his Dragon Ball Kai score?

Toei's chairman watched "Avatar".

More seriously, in Japan, until there's no threat of a judicial proceeding, generally nothing happens.^^ So, I guess you're right MagicBox.

[Big Momma]

I like to think the Kanzenshuu (then Daizex) community is partially responsible. I still remember the first thread from years back that noted the similarities between his music and other artists'.

[penguintruth]

Toei probably didn't give a crap until a lot of fans started talking about it, then felt they needed to cover their asses. Not for legal reasons, mind you. I doubt they would have been sued. I think they did it for public relations reasons.

[kenisu3000]

Wasn't March 2011 (when the music switch occurred) right around the same time Kai hit the Android arc in the States? I've always had this theory that, since Yamamoto-Kai wasn't really that loaded with (immediately obvious) plagiarism until the batch of cues he "composed" for the Android arc, maybe someone involved in the production of one of the movies whose score he ripped off happened to be watching the show one day and noticed an offending cue.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Kei actually said that there were employees at Toei who noticed that two particular tracks--I forget which ones, but Kei would know--sounded to them to be plagiarized. At first they tried to downplay it by just removing those two tracks from future broadcasts and replacing them in re-runs/international dubs. However, those two tracks are what woke Toei up to the idea that Yamamoto might possibly be plagiarizing his music, so they examined his future submissions with a much more careful eye (well, ear). When Yamamoto kept turning in more plagiarized-sounding music, they decided to go into pre-emptive damage control mode and get rid of the score before they got hit with a potential lawsuit.

Which may have been overcautious, because I think we'd have heard about it by now if one of the artists that he infringed upon actually complained about it.

And they really must have made the decision quite late, because Kei also said that, although we didn't get to hear them, official music selections had been made for the Yamamoto score in the final few episodes.

[penguintruth]

Part of me wishes they could have made the decision after getting the OST with the Gohan SSJ2 music out there.

[Kendamu]

Kei actually said that there were employees at Toei who noticed that two particular tracks--I forget which ones, but Kei would know--sounded to them to be plagiarized. At first they tried to downplay it by just removing those two tracks from future broadcasts and replacing them in re-runs/international dubs. However, those two tracks are what woke Toei up to the idea that Yamamoto might possibly be plagiarizing his music, so they examined his future submissions with a much more careful eye (well, ear). When Yamamoto kept turning in more plagiarized-sounding music, they decided to go into pre-emptive damage control mode and get rid of the score before they got hit with a potential lawsuit.

Which may have been overcautious, because I think we'd have heard about it by now if one of the artists that he infringed upon actually complained about it.

And they really must have made the decision quite late, because Kei also said that, although we didn't get to hear them, official music selections had been made for the Yamamoto score in the final few episodes.

"Remove the entire score!"
"Can't we just recycle some other non-offending tracks?"
"REMOVE. THE ENTIRE. SCORE."
"What'll we replace it with?"
"Just put random tracks from DBZ in there."
"That'll take awhile to rescore. Plus, some are in mono and..."
"Who cares? Just take these few tracks here and place them randomly."
"That won't sound good at al--"
"It doesn't matter! Nobody likes this show! We need to get it out of the way so we can start our next big hit: Toriko!"

That's sort of how I imagine that conversation having taken place. Not literally, but that's just how I like to imagine it now that's I've read the inside story on how it all went down.

[kei17]

I like to think the Kanzenshuu (then Daizex) community is partially responsible.

I think I am partially responsible for this matter. I first uploaded a video about the similarities between the Yamamoto score and Hollywood music to Niconico Douga in May 2010, and it was quickly removed by Toei. Nothing more happened at that time. In October, I posted a review of Soundtrack III & Songs on Amazon, which refers to yamamoto's plagiarism. Around the same time, I uploaded a video about him again, and still nothing happened and the video wasn't removed this time.

From what I personally heard from a staff member involved in the production of Kai, in February 2011, they first acknowledged the case of the two particular tracks: The Ebb and the Flow and A New Foe Rears His Head, and tried to solve it by simply replacing these two tracks. FUNi was actually provided with this temporary replacement version of the Yamamoto score for early episodes in the Android arc. However, they found out even more instances of plagiarism later and decided to replace the whole thing. Probably Yamamoto first lied when he was confronted about the two tracks and said that there were no more plagiarized pieces. Then they found out more and completely lost confidence in Yamamoto, which forced them to replace everything. He didn't say how they actually found out his plagiarism, but one of them might have watched my video or read my review.

At the time when I first uploaded a video, the plagiarism was already a well known fact among some Japanese Internet communities like 2ch and many people were discussing it, though. But I am definitely the one who first introduced it to them.

[Flame Dragon]

Question: Did they really risk a lawsuit? I mean, what if the the tracks were to be considered transformative work, thus falling under the fair use category?

[TheBlackPaladin]

Question: Did they really risk a lawsuit? I mean, what if the the tracks were to be considered transformative work, thus falling under the fair use category?

Well, I think whether or not they were actually in danger of a lawsuit is an opinion-based question. In my opinion though, no, I don't think they were. I think they overreacted. Rumor has it that DBZ had plagiarized music long before Yamamoto was the composer, and you'd think that if a composer really was angry about their work being plagiarized, we would have heard about a lawsuit by now.

I dunno. That's my opinion.

Part of me wishes they could have made the decision after getting the OST with the Gohan SSJ2 music out there.

Definitely, yeah. As long as we're dealing with wishes, I'll take it a step further--I wish they could have made the decision long after Kai was over, so that way we could get every Yamamoto track out on CD and watch every episode of the English dub with the Yamamoto score. And I can't help but wonder if Yamamoto composed material that we haven't heard, meant specifically for the last few episodes. Like I mentioned earlier, I guess actual music selections had been officially made for the last few episodes, even the ones that we never heard a Yamamoto score from.

And I think I vaguely recall Kei saying--and I maybe wrong, so feel free to correct me if I am, Kei--that he asked an official at Toei what the official music selections were, and the official said that he knew, but he would look bad if he disclosed that info, because it would arm fans with the ability to make bootlegs of the episodes or even make videos on YouTube of the last few Kai episodes with "the score that was meant to be."

[Cold Skin]

Question: Did they really risk a lawsuit? I mean, what if the the tracks were to be considered transformative work, thus falling under the fair use category?

I think it could have worked if the problematic Yamamoto tracks didn't sound so much like the originals (at least for some of them like the Avatar one).
If they sounded like clear remixes, ending up being a distinguishable work like most remixes are, I think it's no problem, as you clearly don't pretend you created the original track, you've transformed it your own way and you clearly claim this transformation as your unique creation.

But with tracks like The Ebb and the Flow / Avatar, the tracks are so much alike that apart from instrumentation quality (obviously better for a huge movie like Avatar), you could almost replace one with the other on either of the album. Having a track that's like a carbon copy of the original notes and pace and instruments and having your name on the CD basically saying "this is one of my awesome creations" is the whole problem. You take someone else's property and claim it's yours, it's basically... stealing something.

It's too much alike, as if I was paid by a cartoon company to draw an original character for a new cartoon, and I came up with an exact copy of Goku with backwards hair. I may say all I want "it's my own creation, it's different!", they're going to say "so... you want the whole world to believe you're the one who created the legendary Son Goku and that he was created specifically for our cartoon? Yeah, no, sorry!"

And Toei wouldn't take any chances with something illegal being home. It's as if a friend came to you saying "I just robbed thousands of dollars to the bank, would you mind me staying here with you and with all my stolen money?": you might say "sorry dude, I don't want that kind of trouble, you're on your own! Steal stuff if you want, but don't put me in that position too!"

[kei17]

Definitely, yeah. As long as we're dealing with wishes, I'll take it a step further--I wish they could have made the decision long after Kai was over, so that way we could get every Yamamoto track out on CD and watch every episode of the English dub with the Yamamoto score.

That sounds better for fans, but what do you think would have happened if that's the case? My guess is that things would have been even worse and more worldwide, and the show could have been cancelled in several countries.

And I think I vaguely recall Kei saying--and I maybe wrong, so feel free to correct me if I am, Kei--that he asked an official at Toei what the official music selections were, and the official said that he knew, but he would look bad if he disclosed that info, because it would arm fans with the ability to make bootlegs of the episodes or even make videos on YouTube of the last few Kai episodes with "the score that was meant to be."

What he told me was the fact that the last three episodes had a Yamamoto score version, and that's all. I said "I wouldn't reveal the official music selections even if he told them to me" or something like that.

[Freeza Soldier #156]

I don't know if this has been talked about before, but does anyone know what Yamamoto is up to these days? Does he still compose for shows or is he sort of considered not hirable in the way that no one really wants to get near this mess?

[JEFFMAN219]

I don't know if this has been talked about before, but does anyone know what Yamamoto is up to these days? Does he still compose for shows or is he sort of considered not hirable in the way that no one really wants to get near this mess?

I've heard that he still makes music.

[kei17]

I don't know if this has been talked about before, but does anyone know what Yamamoto is up to these days? Does he still compose for shows or is he sort of considered not hirable in the way that no one really wants to get near this mess?

He still occasionally arranges Kageyama's songs, but no more composes music himself.

[TheBlackPaladin]

Definitely, yeah. As long as we're dealing with wishes, I'll take it a step further--I wish they could have made the decision long after Kai was over, so that way we could get every Yamamoto track out on CD and watch every episode of the English dub with the Yamamoto score.

That sounds better for fans, but what do you think would have happened if that's the case? My guess is that things would have been even worse and more worldwide, and the show could have been cancelled in several countries.

I could see that happening, yeah. However, I could also see that not happening. If we take into account that nobody has sued Toei, and that Toei allowed episodes to air with the Yamamoto score intact even after the music scandal came to light (as shown through Nicktoons, the first 13-15 episodes of the Latino Spanish dub, Toonzai online streaming, and possibly other dubs), I can't help but question how big a deal Toei thought the plagiarism was. Big enough for the music to be replaced, sure, but you'd think if they were that scared about a lawsuit, they'd order an immediate halt to any and all airings of the episodes with the Yamamoto score.

[Flame Dragon]

Definitely, yeah. As long as we're dealing with wishes, I'll take it a step further--I wish they could have made the decision long after Kai was over, so that way we could get every Yamamoto track out on CD and watch every episode of the English dub with the Yamamoto score.

That sounds better for fans, but what do you think would have happened if that's the case? My guess is that things would have been even worse and more worldwide, and the show could have been cancelled in several countries.

I could see that happening, yeah. However, I could also see that not happening. If we take into account that nobody has sued Toei, and that Toei allowed episodes to air with the Yamamoto score intact even after the music scandal came to light (as shown through Nicktoons, the first 13-15 episodes of the Latino Spanish dub, Toonzai online streaming, and possibly other dubs), I can't help but question how big a deal Toei thought the plagiarism was. Big enough for the music to be replaced, sure, but you'd think if they were that scared about a lawsuit, they'd order an immediate halt to any and all airings of the episodes with the Yamamoto score.

They definitely made the wisest choice though. "Better to prevent than to cure"