The Masked Singer Australia stole from band Halocene
On October 29, the band Halocene published a video on YouTube (found below) claiming that the Australian version of the popular show The Masked Singer stole the arrangement of Billie Eilish’s “Bad Guy” from them.
The Masked Singer is a fun and innovative show that originated in South Korea that has celebrities sing popular songs while dressed in elaborate costumes. The catch is that it is up to the judges and audience to use clues provided to them to find out the identities of the performers. As the show progresses, more and more of the celebrities are unmasked based on how well they performed (as voted by the audience).
It is not uncommon to see an original take of a popular song on the show, but it is unusual to see plagiarism. In the video released by Halocene, they demonstrate the similarities between their cover and The Masked Singer’s cover.
The band released the video for their cover of “Bad Guy” on April 29, 2019, while episode three of The Masked Singer Australia — the episode that had “Bad Guy” performed — debuted on September 30, 2019.
Halocene has started a GoFundMe in hopes of raising money to take legal action against the show. Halocene states that they paid to make a cover of the Billie Eilish song but The Masked Singer never notified them or asked for the use of their cover.
On their GoFundMe, they state “… we have simply worked too hard, and too long, to sit by the way side and let a TV show make millions off a show featuring an arrangement we made.”
The band has made $1,290 of their $15,000 goal.
So far, there has been no comment made by anyone affiliated with The Masked Singer.
To hear the original cover and hear more music from the band Halocene, check the videos below.
