The controversy began on July 22. Cai Xukun released a new single "Hug me" on major music platforms, and it was accompanied by a song designed by "Forty-seven Sheep Co., Ltd." poster. The poster has a pink background, with red lines outlining the figure of a person being hugged by both hands, with "KUN" representing Cai Xukun and the song title "HUG ME" printed on the top and bottom.
However, shortly after the poster was released, netizens pointed out that its composition was very similar to the poster of the American movie "Encountering Strangers" released in 2010. After the overlay processing, even the shadows and lines were different. They almost overlap, and there is a suspicion of plagiarism.
Netizens’ doubts quickly attracted the attention of Cai Xukun’s studio. Soon, the studio issued a statement apologizing, saying that after discovering the problem, it had immediately ordered the design company to conduct a self-examination, but did not receive an effective reply from the other party. Subsequently, the studio withdrew the poster and revealed that it had launched rights protection procedures and was responsible for Party will strictly hold accountable and safeguard its own rights and interests. "The studio always attaches great importance to originality and the protection of intellectual property rights, and will never tolerate infringement of intellectual property rights."
The head of the "Forty-Seven Sheep" company responsible for the poster design is Xinrui Designer Yang Shiqing has collaborated with many singers such as Lin Youjia, Wei Ruxuan, Ding Dang, Xu Guanghan, etc. Last night, the company finally issued an apology statement, in which it introduced the design process and ideas of the cover poster and denied plagiarism: "Before and during the album cover design, the designer had not watched the movie. "Promotional posters." However, they also admitted: "I have indeed seen similar works on online platforms." However, netizens did not buy this explanation. In a survey on Weibo titled "Forty-seven Sheep issued an apology statement but denied plagiarism, what do you think?", 43,000 of the 60,000 netizens who participated in the comments voted for "Isn't this considered plagiarism?" ” and “Stop talking” options.
In recent years, plagiarism incidents of songs and film and television posters have occurred frequently. The posters of the online drama "Who is the Murderer", the posters of the TV series "The Next Stop Is Happiness", and the posters of the movie "I am not the God of Medicine" have been plagiarized. 2.5 billion posters, etc. have all been accused of plagiarism. On the other hand, as the audience's aesthetic appreciation improves, excellent poster designers such as Huang Hai and Guo Zikai who insist on originality have begun to be known to more people. This puts forward higher requirements for the ability of literary and artistic creation teams to review design works, and also sounds a warning to designers - "copy and paste" is not a shortcut but a crooked way, and concentrating on originality is the right way.