Creative work by ANTIVJ gets ripped off in new Microsoft Xbox launch

The launch video for Microsoft's Xbox Series X console "borrows" from work by ANTIVJ (and a ground-breaking indie game, too).

[Jin_Sakai]

Looks very similar. Doesn’t surprise me coming from Microsoft.

[Spurg]

It's not an outright copy but an inspired piece. Not like copy of that PlayStation advert they very blantly ripped off every single animation.

[UnorthodoxAndCynical]

That's what a rip off is. I doubt anyone can replicate it completely unless the artist does it himself.

[naruga]

lol ..didnt even launch yet ..and started with a controversy and stealing ....

[The Wood]

Another 'look over there at them' swerve

[darthv72]

Wait... I've seen that effect years before in movies. So who is really ripping off who?

[Unspoken]

True it isn't a copy. I wanted to watch the video to determine if every segment was mirrored but it is only the 9 seconds which seem similarly created. I wonder if this hit the news because of the PS4 ad copy fiasco where Sony is now apologizing to all copied artists..

[fr0sty]

I am a VJ that makes visual content like this... we don't exactly get rich doing it, and anyone, especially one of the world's most valuable companies, ripping us off, is doing a lot of damage. These animations take a LONG time to come up with and even longer to figure out how to pull it off, then the painstaking process of rendering which can take weeks (or months even). The worst part about it, they probably spent more time and money "making their own version" than they would have just licensing the video from that artist.

[KickSpinFilter]

First it was the Advertising agency who ripped off the animation for the Sony Ad. As I'm sure is the case here.

[DigitallyAfflicted]

if you would do it to MS, you will have to explain yourself in court...

[ziggurcat]

Sony didn’t rip anything off - the person who made the ad did...

[fr0sty]

They ripped off the effect itself, but also the shot composition. The camera angles are identical in all shots. The edit is also ripped off, each shot is the same exact length as the original. The only thing different is the 3D modeling the light is shining on, and some change to the spreading effect on the last shot. This was ripped off.

[Obscure_Observer]

FCS!

Its a 00.09 seconds segment out of an entire 01:53 minute video!

But hey, its Microsoft! Lets bury them under rocks while we give other companies a free pass

[UltraNova]

I'm afraid no amount of damage control will be enough to cover this up, dear obscure.

[Obscure_Observer]

@UltraNova

Nothing has to cover up. I think MS has to do right to the original artist or remove the entire piece!

Its just funny to see different opinions when the same cases are reversed. Lol

[The Wood]

Do you ever take a day off. Both cases are clearly different but for some, defence is just a reflex. . . Gaara of the desert levels

[GTgamer]

I don't see why you would blame either company for these things it's not like they actually made the videos themselves in Sony's case they paid someone to make a video and that individual choose to steal from someone else if that's the same case for MS then I'll give MS a pass too. Just sayinnnnng.

[darthv72]

I know I've seen that effect in a movie from years ago. Almost everything inspires something else. So something obviously inspired ANTIVJ to begin with.

[Christopher]

@Obscure_Observer: https://n4g.com/news/231218...

No free passes.

[MasterCornholio]

@Christopher

THANK YOU!!!!

[Zeref]

It's not even about that, this is a very common special effect 😂

[Christopher]

SHouldn't surprise anyone, but not because of who it's from. This is the exact same thing as Sony's music video from a week or two ago. They hire marketing teams to do these videos and create ideas. Every once in a while those marketing people either have extremely similar outcomes as someone else or they have someone who outright steals an idea.

Don't try and make this about the "evil" Microsoft when it happens regularly and Microsoft just hires third-parties like everyone else to make what they think are the best representation of their marketing goals with the device.

[ziggurcat]

This crap happens all the time, none of it is really the fault of the company (whether it’s MS or even Sony), it’s all the responsibility of whoever produced the video.

[1Victor]

Well said Christopher but here there’s some who’s observations get obscured by their favoritism.
Marketing departments tend to go the easiest was possible and sometimes they get caught with their pants down other times they get away with it 🤣

[Zeref]

Definitely a slow news day, have yall been under a rock? This effect is pretty common in trailers.

[neutralgamer1992]

Ms advertised killzone shadow fall screen shots as Xbox one launch title 😂

[Kribwalker]

and sony has used forza and project gotham screen shots to advertise Gran Turismo 3 or 4 times. Shit happens everywhere
https://ca.ign.com/articles...

[pinkcrocodile75]

@Jin_Sakai - Spoken like true spy

[RangerWalk267]

You must be brand loyal to Sony. Because there is no reason to make it sound like Microsoft is known for this. They are not. Sony on the other hand... MASSIVELY notorious for doing it. Hell, even their first party Studios do it. Take the example of naughty dog including a photo of assassin's Creed into uncharted 4. Activision filed a suit making them change it.

[HaVoK308]

Sony was caught doing the same thing not so long ago. Both at fault, but neither the original culprit. This kind of stuff is almost always contracted out. It’s those contractors ripping people off. And it happens everyday. Firms are constantly ripping off people on the internet.

[ElementX]

Whoever designed the video for MS needs to do some explaining. Now, I wouldn't blame MS per se. Somebody or a group of people either in-house or contracted, created the MS video.... do you expect MS's marketing team to run some sort of algorithm to compare every submitted video to every other video on the planet? That's not how things work. Until the video went public, it's quite possible the only people who knew the MS video was copied were the people who created it. Do people expect MS employees to enter the boardroom and say "we discovered this small artist group and we like their video, so we're going to make the same thing"? That's just absurd

[amazingmax7]

Or coincidentally, the person who made the xbox/microsoft video just came up with the idea and it just happened to be like the indie artists work.

It's either that or what @ElementX said. It isn't MS fault, it would be the in-house/contract person that didn't get permission etc, otherwise MS wouldn't of approved it, they would of contacted the Indie person first.

[TK-66]

Actually the person has a lot of explaining to do. I've done 5 seconds of thumb twiddling and found this orange shimmery line in the Halo 4 E3 trailer. This guy thinks he can copy Halo 4s marketing on Microsofts payroll? Outrageous./s

https://youtu.be/68jCp6YTNI...

[Gazondaily]

Microsoft are vicariously liable unless they did it in house. Then they are directly so.

Unless it's all an amazing coincidence. Which, is amazingly unlikely.

[Christopher]

Contracts will remove liability from Microsoft if they hired a third-party to do it. Part of the third-party contract will include explicit statements about these situations and how they will not only hold the company being hired liable for their use and any resulting financial loss but also likely result in reimbursement of compensation for said work.

[Gazondaily]

@shaggy

Yes the same principle applies

[Wasabi]

@Septic

Typical, disagrees because of who you are, rather than what you said.

Pathetic.

[Gazondaily]

Haha haters gon hate 🤷‍♂️

[rainslacker]

Depends. MS has it's own in house marketing team capable of media creation like this. In which case, they'd be liable, although it isnt always going to result in financial culpability if they handle the situation right after its found out.

If they used a 3rd party, contracts will protect them, and not much may come of it if the copyright holder presses the issue. Ms would likely take down the ad.

The thing about financial culpability with copyright is that more often than not, it requires ongoing infringement to go anywhere in court. Outside some mitigating circumstances, the person infringing needs to knowingly be doing so.

Not sure the claimant in this case was trying to fish for money. The comment seemed more about how indie devs work was abused in this manner.

Plus, not sure it's really a valid copyright claim at this point.

[KillBill]

"Look, this is legal. It’s maybe even arguably ethical..." - no one is arguing any legal or ethical stance in the article. Odd that your first choice of attack was to do so.

[The Wood]

As usual. . .some balanced sense

[Zeref]

Yall ever watched trailers? I've seen similar scenes countless times 😂😂😂

[Ricegum]

You're defending this like there's no tomorrow. No matter how many laughing emojis you put Microsoft need to address this.

[Zeref]

No they don't need to address anything, Cuz they did nothing wrong 😂 That guy didn't invent this special effect

[rainslacker]

Stuff like this happens frequently. It shouldn't, but that's the world we live in.

It's not that it happens that's important for blame, it's how the companies handle it once it's been pointed out and verified. Some are better than others, but if MS verifies its true, theyll likely pull the trailer

[CrimsonWing69]

Man, this is becoming a problem. I’ve been seeing this for a PS4 animated ad. Like how do you not think someone won’t notice?

[Christopher]

People get away with it for so long until they don't.

Same thing happened with that one IGN reviewer who plagiarized his first review there, then people started finding that his past reviews were also plagiarized once they delved deeper.

The Sony one is confusing since the director had been accused already of theft of ideas previously, but the company that Sony hired used him anyway.

[Zeref]

Except this isn't the same at all. I've seen countless trailers that do the sparkly line thing

[chiefJohn117]

Exactly this is a common theme setup

[CrimsonWing69]

I dunno man, those looked a bit too similar. It’s essentially the same as plagiarism with writing except you changed some words.

[Shikoku]

Yeah its similar but I would say they ripped him off his in the last few seconds is obviously different.

[bluefox755]

Imagine my shock.

[Nerdsworth]

Weak news is weak.

[sampsonon]

whenever it's about MS and xbox it's a slow news week. especially when it comes to games.

[sampsonon]

not surprised

[meka2611]

Wow, fanboys will look for the dumbest things to diss the console they don't like. These things are barely alike, oh no they have a line going down which has never been done before, yea BS, effects like this have been done before and the xbox one is different as things are coming to life in the line, the other one is just a damn line. I've seen other ones in the past where the line leads to plants coming to life so no this isn't copying and you guys are nuts to think so. Also you wanna talk about a company copying how about sony did a blatant copy off a pc controller for the dual shock and was in a lawsuit for 7 years for it. That was copying, these are just barely similar.

[super_bruno]

People here are so dumb, this is probably a preset effect. But no, let's just pretend MS did this knowing people would find out (rolls eyes)

[Zeref]

Exactly what I'm saying, this effect has been used countless times. They just looking for something to say 😂😂

[Ricegum]

And again.

[rainslacker]

I kind of thought it was kind of hard to say one owns or created this particular effect.

I dabble with various things in art programs, and without even trying I can make things that remind me of things I've seen on other work. A little tweaking of some settings and it could look exactly the same.

Copyright is weird sometimes. If one comes up with something on their own, and isnt influenced by something else, then it may not be infringement. But other times it is.

[FanboySpotter]

What a reach lol 9 seconds

[OC_MurphysLaw]

I see slow news week again...

[DiRtY]

Oh come on! That effect was done like 2 million times in random sci-fi / action movies...

[Zeref]

For real 🤣 🤣 🤣

[rainslacker]

Right...ms ripped off 2 million other scifi programs....not this guy. /s

Seriously though, I think its stretching on this claim.

[battlegrog]

As if anyone cares,This is how most business work. We copy each other. Pro wrestling is consonantly copying each other or copying from movies and games.In fact this will further give that guy some recognize so he should be thankful. Carry on

[Christopher]

Filing lawsuits or fining people for doing this sort of thing is also how most business works.

[MasterCornholio]

Well hopefully they make the right decision with this.

[UnholyLight]

Seems like it could be an internal issue. Microsoft should handle accordingly. Honestly this seems like a bit of a reach in terms of accusing Microsoft themselves of a controversy. It's not that big of a deal, give the people that obviously ripped it a slap on the wrist and apologize to the people that made it first.

[franwex]

Wow, even the shots are similar. But hey! At least he’s getting recognition and publicity for the original work now!