Hello!

I’ll leave it entirely to your discretion, whether this can be considered a publishing-worthy news item. It’s why the subject is complemented with a question mark. The text isn’t probably ready for print as such either. Sorry about that.

Anyway.. It seems that our demoscene group Kewlers has gotten “fanboyed” by Deadmau5 in a fashion slightly too obvious. First up, the Kewlers PC-demo ‘Protozoa’ from 2003:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1khU3CycA#t=00s

..followed by Deadmau5′ tune ‘FML’ from his album ‘For Lack of a Better Name’ released last fall:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMKcmomGg#t=50s

..a clip from a Deadmau5 interview where he briefly mentions his musical roots and influences:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZhO-Qy3U#t=55s

..and finally, a comparison video of the aforementioned tracks:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EQmXAxU0

I have no other official evidence, but a reliable source confirmed off-the-record that Deadmau5 had been very interested in demoscene during summer of 2008. Mau5trap Records hasn’t yet been reached for a comment. If you’re not familiar with the demoscene as a cultural phenomena, you can read about it on Wikipedia here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demoscene

If you have any further questions please forward them to me. Being the other one of the main composers of the tune used in ‘Protozoa’ (Mel Function being the other one) I’m acting as the representative of Kewlers and can answer or forward questions accordingly. Also, if you decide to publish this as a news item please notify me about it as we’d like to keep track of how people perceive this.

Kewlers doesn’t have the financial resources (or the interest, for that matter) to take any legal action. It has been a demoscene tradition, that clearance/permission is usually given sometimes even to lesser commercial derivatives if the permission asked and it’s creators properly credited for in the derivative.

Unfortunately this is not a clear sampling case as the demoscene related controversy of 2007 involving the producer Timbaland and demosceners Tempest & GRG was (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbaland_plagiarism_controversy). However, given the apparent similarity between these two tracks and the fact that no permission has been asked for, the least we can do is to present the evidence and let everyone draw their own conclusions.

Best Regards,
Little Bitchard / Kewlers
http://www.kewlers.scene.org/bitchard/
http://www.kewlers.scene.org