Made to Order Plagiarism

This evening I came across an advertisement that perked my ears. “Trunk Club”, presents a chic and indie-stylized boutique online clothing store for men. Their advertisement features hip young people walking around a fashionable office space, to the sound of a guitar and drum tune that really gets your toe tapping. It feels comfortable, friendly, and oddly familiar. Almost too familiar.

Have a look at the advertisement, and see if it reminds you of anything.

If you guessed the White Stripes, you’re not alone. The soundtrack for Trunk Club is so incredibly close to the White Stripes’ “We’re Going to Be Friends”, it baffles me at how they’re getting away with such blatant plagiarism. We must consider that Trunk Club purchased the rights for the song, and then slightly recomposed it. However, when looking at trends in advertising soundtracks, this seems unlikely.

While I’m shocked by the blatant plagiarism, it’s not the first time that made-to-order (or made-to-sound-like) advertising music has ripped off a famous band’s sound. In 2012, the New York Times wrote a piece about a Volkswagen commercial that used music intentionally made to sound like the band Beach House (see examples below). After numerous rejections by Beach House to allow their music to be licensed, Volkswagen hired a firm to create a song whose melodic and lyric content were undeniably similar to that of Beach House.

Unfortunately, Beach House is not the only band who has experiences a misappropriation of their music, in an invasive and inorganic way. Other groups include Sigur Ros, The Arcade Fire, Fleet Foxes, LCD Sound System, The Black Keys, and Grizzly Bear (click here for a list of examples).

So what do you think? Are these acts of plagiarism, or industry nods to bands that won’t license their music to advertisers?