Ingrid Michaelson’s “Be Ok” ripped off… by Dell.
Come on dude. Seriously? Of all people to rip off Ingrid Michaelson (amazing musician/social media godess), it has to be Dell (who I thought was getting better at this).
I’m guessing this is one of those cases where someone on the production team has gotten a little to inspired by the song, but this is just blatant infringement, and there’s no way nobody couldn’t have noticed this (videos at the bottom of the post).
The worst part of it all is Ingrid is indie, meaning there’s no big record company to cease and desist for her (the one time they come in handy…). She’s indie. She’s not overflowing with money. For goodness sake, the music video for the song is for cancer research. Give the girl a break and use her song, credit her, and pay her some friggin’ money.
And ask permission, please.
The Original:
One Comment
It’s not uncommon for advertisers to commission “soundalike” songs, which are intended to capture the feel of a famous tune while not infringing on the copyright. You can see this especially in DVD releases of TV Shows, when the studios don’t want to or can’t negotiate the rights to use the original song (one of the most famous is the changed theme in the later DVD seasons of ‘Married With Children’).
Maybe that’s what happened here, but this goes way beyond just a soundalike–it’s the exact same chord progression, as well as the same instrumentation.
I’m glad you blogged about this. Hopefully we can raise some outrage–it’s not cool for Dell to so blatantly rip off an indie artist like this.