Robbing of grounds in Linkin Park song contest
Last week our attention got grabbed by the following post in which Chester of Linkin Park congratulates the winner of a song contest endorsed by them:
All in all it seems like a really nice thing. Done by guys that keep on supporting small artists despite their massive celebrity status in the rock music world. But when going deeper into the whole story something rather nasty comes to the surface. Probably half of the comments on this post are in disbelief and anger about what is a case of flagrant plagiarism.
The winning rock track Ease My Scream by Rob Grounds Music seems like indeed quite a nice track with vocals very similar to Bullet For My Valentine and the lot. But the problem here is with the musical backdrop of the whole song. It’s 100% the same musical composition of another song (Lost Chance) that got released back in 2012 as a shared creation by Finnish artist Jay Ray and Russian producer Paul Udarov. It even goes so far that when you Shazam Ease My Scream, you get the Lost Chance song as a result! If you want to compare yourself:
Jay Ray, real name Joni Säde, is an electronic metal & rock artist and producer and gathered quite some fans throughout the years with his great covers and songwriting. And it’s by one of his fans that he caught wind of the theft. Jay Ray reacted in disbelief for the wrong doing and can’t stress enough that Paul Udarov deserves most of the credits for the music. And that what happened is just morally wrong, even if he wouldn’t have anything to do with the song he’d be pissed about it ’cause you don’t use other people’s work without any permission. Paul composed the song and shared the rights with Jay Ray to further master and produce the song and add lyrics. The song is registered under “Creative Commons” and when used should have at least a mentioning of the artist behind it.
There’s been some reactions back from the Rob Grounds camp that he’s been working with Paul on the song and that he has the rights to it. But whenever people ask Paul about the truth in that comment, he completely denies to have given the rights to Rob whatsoever. Openlabs and Linkin Park are going to look into the whole mess to figure out what to do with it.
One positive note to the story: because of this situation Linkin Park noticed how good long-time fan Jay Ray actually is. So who knows what this could bring along in the future for him? If you like his work, be sure to keep an eye on his FB page where he regularly puts videos and updates on his upcoming debut album (trailer down below). And of course check out the FB page of Paul Udarov too for regular updates.
https://youtu.be/qt_62yBcVu4
And to end this article, the official music video for the reworked, remixed and remastered newer version of Lost Chance:
