Beyonce's "Countdown" and Kelly Rowland's "Lay It On Me" both suffer plagiarism accusations.

If the BBC think Beyonce and the plagiarism accusations levelled at her new video Countdown is news then who am I to not post on it. Read the the original BBC post below, and find my two pennies under it along with the Kelly Rowland story.

Beyonce is being accused of stealing dance moves for her new video Countdown from a famous choreographer.

The pop star admitted that a 22-second sequence was inspired by Belgian dancer Anne Teresa De Keersmaker, who created the ballet Rosas Danst Rosa.

However, Ms De Keersmaker said she had never been contacted for permission and called the pop video "pure plagiarism."

Beyonce said the ballet was "one of many references" for the video, which also pays homage to Andy Warhol.

A comparative clip on YouTube, entitled Beyonce vs Anne Teresa De Keersmaker, shows the similarities in the dance.

Beyonce acknowledged the debt, saying the original piece was "one of the inspirations to bring the song to life".
Continue reading the main story

Clearly the ballet Rosas Danst Rosas was one of many references for the video. It was one of the inspirations to bring the song to life

Beyonce Knowles

"I was also paying tribute to the film Funny Face with Audrey Hepburn."

She added: "My biggest inspirations were the 60s, the 70s, Brigitte Bardot, Andy Warhol, Twiggy and Diana Ross."

The co-director of Beyonce's video, Adria Petty, who claims to have showed the singer the contemporary ballet, has also issued a statement.

"[The original ballet] was refreshing, interesting, timeless," she said.

"Beyonce's YouTube video already has had close to two million views, so fans will discover all the tributes and then discover Audrey Hepburn, Warhol, Bardot and Rosas Danst Rosas and all the works that inspired me and shaped this video."

Filmmaker Thierry De Mey, who filmed a version of the ballet in 1997, said the plagiarism was obvious and added: "When I am doing a film or a show, the first thing to check is copyright, the rights to adapt a work of art."

Rosas Danst Rosas is one of the Belgian dance company's greatest hits and is still being performed around the world.

A spokeswoman for the dance troupe said they discovered the Beyonce video last week: "We noticed more than a few resemblances to the film. We have passed the details to our lawyer to see about our rights," she said.

Claiming legal ownership over a single dance move is difficult, although a sequence of moves could be protected if they were unique and the choreographer could prove they created them.

They would also have to show a substantial portion of the moves had been used without permission.

Source: BBC

[Beyonce's Countdown video side by side with the parts that were inspired/stolen from Rosas Danst Rosas' ballet]

Its sadly now becoming a bit of a running joke about Beyonce and her, shall we say, "borrowing" or being "inspired" by the ideas and works of others. It wouldn't look so bad on the singer if she'd only state these inspirations before a video is aired because we all know nothing is created in a vacuum and people are inspired by others all the time. However, the way she addresses these claims of plagiarism after the fact makes it look suspiciously like she's doing so only because she's been been called out on it due to somebody else noticing and publicising it.

You'd think after the previous claims levelled at Beyonce for copying others in regards to the iconic Single Ladies video, and her stunning performance of Who Run the World (Girls) at the 2011 Billboard Awards- a performance I personally was amazed by until I saw how closely it mirrored its source material- that it would be a case of once bitten, twice shy, twice bitten, thrice shy. But in being pulled up again and again for the same thing it's starting to make Beyonce look arrogant and unconcerned with the rights of the people who's work she uses.

[Beyonce's Single Ladies video and its inspiration Mexican Breakfast performed on the Ed Sullivan Show]


[Lorella Cuccarini's performance that Beyonce was later said to have inspired her Billboard performance]

Add these plagiarism claims to those of fake writing credits and now even rumours of a fake pregnancy, after the somewhat suspicious way her baby bump crumpled as she sat down during an Australian interview, and Beyonce's career is starting to smell increasingly plastic.

[Wendy Williams talks about Beyonces pregnancy]

To end this post, it seems anything B can do fellow Destiny's child member Kelly Rowland can do better also, as she too came under fire for doing a little plagiarism of her own this week with her new video Lay It on Me. As this is your first time Kelly, we'll let you off this.

[Kelly Rowland Copies Livvi Franc]