Italian wannabe singer plagiarism case

Plagirism is no big news in the K-pop world anymore, new cases seem to sprout like mushrooms everywhere. The latest one occured in northern Italy, where a wannabe singer and performer from Milan, Alex Palmieri, copied the melodies of not one, not two, but eight hits from major Hallyu Wave stars. This young man is part of a musical competiotion called Social King 2.0, which is aired by Rai2, one of the biggest Italian channels, every sunday. During one of his performances he danced to a track, Disco Music, from his album Move, that is identical to 4Minute’s Muzik. Compare the two songs by watching the videos below.

On this site you can listen to the aforementioned Move album and realize just how much his track Starsystem resembles TVXQ’s major success Mirotic,  Meno Fragile (Less Fragile) is nothing but Taeyang’s heartbreakingly moving song Wedding Dress butchered, Sogno (Dream) is a poor version of SS501′s Love Ya, Insanity copies Koda’s Taboo and Stalker 2PM’s Again and Again. Some think that even his title track, Move, seems vaguely similar to BoA’s Girls on Top and Shelter is definitely based upon Canadian artist Shawn Desman’s Shiver. Out of the nine songs that make up his album, not one seems original.

Italian K-pop fans were greatly ashamed and angered to find out that someone whose nationality they shared had done something so reproachful and immediately tried to contact Alex Palmieri to get some kind of explanation. Many of them attacked him verbally, unable to control their remorse, and didn’t get an answer, but one managed to keep feelings in check and sent a polite message. The performer from Milan answered her questions, trying to explain his actions as best as he could, here’s a transcription of his reply.

• Original message: “Ciao X, ti ringrazio per il tuo messaggio espresso in maniera matura. Io ho cercato di spiegare in tutti i modi che non ho mai detto di aver ne scritto di sana pianta, e ne COMPRATO i diritti di queste canzoni. Ho solo scritto un testo sopra. Non mi sognerei mai di comprare i pezzi della cube perchè è cosa impossibile, ma per fare questi lavori si possono anche pagare i diritti. Certo anche io ascolto molto kpop, e la scelta di usare le basi è stata mia!! Per esempio Popstar è un pezzo interamente mio. Per il resto delle persone non so davvero cosa fare, tanto la gente non da ascolto… sono tutti bravi a puntare il dito! Questo è quanto, grazie ancora per la tua gentilezza. Alex.”
• Translation: “Hi X, thank you for your mature and polite message. I’ve tried to explain in every possible way that I’ve never said I composed the songs completely by myself nor that I BOUGHT the rights for these songs. I just wrote lyrics on them. I would never imagine buying Cube’s songs, because it’s impossible, but to do these kinds of things you can also pay for the rights. Of course I listen to a lot of K-pop and the choice of using the melodies was mine!! Popstar for example is my own creation. I don’t know what to do about the other people, they don’t listen anyway… they’re all good at pointing their fingers! This is all, thank you once again for your politeness. Alex.”

It seems to me that Alex is contradicting himself. First he clearly states that he did not buy rights for those songs, but then he states the possibility of using the songs by buying the rights to them. What exactly is he trying to say? What do you think, dear readers?