12/11/2007: "Square Enix Wins Copyright Infringment Lawsuit"

Way back in March of this year, Square Enix took the creators behind a music video to court over their blatant plagiarism of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. This video, by Korean pop singer Ivy, shocked many FFVII fans back then with its faithful recreation of much of the Tifa and Loz fight scene from the movie; Square Enix took legal action not much later. For those of you who have not yet seen the infringing video, you can view it here.

Today, Next Generation reports that the lawsuit has now been settled, with Square Enix as the victor. The judge presiding over the case ruled that Fantom, the media firm responsible for the video, "illegally used 80 percent of (Advent Children's) storyline, setting, characters and their styles of dress". Fantom was ordered to pay a fine totaling ten million won (approx. $10,900 US dollars). Additionally, the director of Fantom and the music video's director were each ordered to pay six million won ($6,500).

Posted by Reeve at 09:47 AM EST

on Tuesday, December 11th, Sam said

I hope this doesn't spark any racism. In some youtube comments there were disputes over korea and japan which was not cool. The reason why I think the fine wasn't that much was around 0:37 it says that it is a recreation of Advent children.

on Saturday, December 15th, Leslie Brant said

It's a nice video and it's almost perfect. I wonder why I haven't heard of this before. As for the lawsuit, SquareEnix just wanted some more money in their pockets.

on Sunday, December 16th, Aurum said

It was a good song actually and I remember watching it when "Arirang" played it constantly on their channel. It was a Korean hit and stayed at number one for a few weeks too. Yet I still think that Squaresoft took it a little too far since Ivy did credit them at the end of her music video.

on Sunday, December 16th, Reeve said

Despite the credit given, Square Enix never gave Ivy/Fantom permission to use their intellectual property in the first place. Remember that this wasn't a fanwork made with no expectations of monetary returns, this was a professionally done music video, a marketing tool to sell a singer's records. Thus, I believe Square Enix is in the right here.