There’s a big hoo-haa about plagiarism in this years NDP video.
Apparently, shortly after it was released, someone found certain scenes in the NDP video very similar to that of a jap commercial.
Here are the videos:
First the Jap video
Next our NDP video
The Electric New Paper :
Producer says she did a remake as she liked the ad’s message:
I was localising an inspirational idea
S’pore netizens complain NDP video is too similar to Japanese ad
THE new National Day Parade (NDP) music video has stirred more than patriotic sentiment.
By Desmond Ng
16 July 2008THE new National Day Parade (NDP) music video has stirred more than patriotic sentiment.
As the video is an adaptation of a Japanese advertisement, some netizens are up in arms.
A contributor to website Stomp, Daniel, said: ‘I think this is unoriginal and uncreative, especially for our NDP.
‘I feel that any national project should be original and not recycled concepts already done by other countries.’
Another contributor, Shaffezah, said: ‘No originality. They should change it. Have they run out of ideas?’
But Ms Gloria Chee, the producer of the video, disagrees. She said she was simply localising an inspirational idea.
She saw the 1 1/2-minute Japanese video online a few years ago, and it left a deep impression on her.
Said Ms Chee, a freelance producer: ‘I liked their message that parents shouldn’t censor the ideas of kids. I wanted to localise that inspiring video and share it with parents here. It’s a remake of that idea.
‘I never thought of it as copying. It’s like how Jack Neo’s movie ‘Home Run’ is a remake of the Iranian movie ‘Children of Heaven’.’
The 35-year-old said she was commissioned by the NDP organisers to produce this year’s videos.
She produced the three-minute video in under three days in May. Ms Chee said her friends, relatives and the NDP committee also knew that she had adapted the idea from the Japanese ad.
Said Ms Chee: ‘I didn’t do it with the idea that no one will know. From the production house to my friends and my parents, I never tried to hide the fact that my video is a remake of the Japanese video.
‘And this is not a profit-oriented video, it’s a public service I’m doing for the country.’
She said she only gets a modest honorarium for producing the video.
While she feels that some of the online criticism is harsh, she hopes that Singaporeans will understand her intention behind the video.
She explained: ‘My intention was simply to spread the message that one shouldn’t censor children’s ideas. And I felt that the Japanese video best conveys that message.’
Some netizens like babyhorse defended the producer and said: ‘Perhaps the creator of our NDP video was inspired by the Japanese version. Nothing to be ashamed of. If we can import sports talent and call them our own, I do not see why there is a fuss over this video.’
Lawyer Tan Hee Joek said that there’s no copyright infringement here.
He said: ‘Using the idea is not a copyright infringement. If she had lifted the video and used it wholesale, then it’s a copyright infringement. Ideas per se can’t be copyrighted.’
You got to admit that “localizing an inspirational idea” defintely sounds much better than “plagiarizing”.
And pointing out that someone else has done the same in a film sure makes it ok.
Besides, I do it for free ok! What do you expect?
The fact that one can come up with a term like ‘localizing an inspirational idea’ is already an indication of how creative we are!
By the way, I cannot claim credit for finding the videos, I merely ‘localized it’ after seeing it on www.mrbrown.com
