Singer Hee-yeol Yoo admitted to the allegation that a Japanese piano player plagiarized a song written by Ryuichi Sakamoto.
On June 14th, Hee-Yeol Yoo posted a long post starting with “I would like to apologize first” through the official social networking service (SNS) account of the agency Antenna Music.
He said, “Since the fall of last year, I have been working on a project to release one piano piece a month under the title ‘You Hee-Yeol’s Life Music’. There was a report from one person that ‘Bam’ and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s ‘Aqua’ are similar.”
Yoo Hee-yeol admitted the allegation of plagiarism, saying, “As a result of the review, we have come to agree that the main theme of the song is sufficiently similar.”
He explained, “As the musician I have been most influenced and respected for a long time, I unconsciously wrote the song in a similar way that remained in my memory.
He continued, “I apologize for not being able to check enough and disappointing many people,” he said. Yoo Hee-yeol said, “As a long-time fan, the fact that Sakamoto-sensei’s health is not very good now hurts my heart even more.”
Yoo Hee-yeol also said, “However, among the information you posted on Instagram, you mentioned the similarity in a YouTube comment a few weeks ago, but the content that was intentionally omitted due to Antenna’s response was different from the truth and misunderstood as a result of the review. Also, I apologize for the fact that you reported it through the official e-mail, and I will check and look more closely in the future.”
As a follow-up measure after admitting plagiarism, Yoo Hee-yeol explained, “First of all, we postponed the release of the LP, and we will contact Sakamoto to sort out credit and copyright issues.
Lastly, Yoo Hee-yeol said, “I would like to apologize to the production crew for the setbacks caused by my personal actions. And I apologize once again for causing inconvenience and disappointment to those who have been waiting for the music to come out after a long time.” did.
Soyeon Lee / Antenna Music SNS