Primary's "I Got C," "Mr. Lee" Under Scrutiny for Possible Plagiarism of Dutch Artist

Popular producer Primary is involved in a possible plagiarism controversy, especially for his recent “Infinity Challenge” hit, “I Got C,” as well as other past tracks such as Park Ji Yoon‘s “Mr. Lee” and “Happy Ending.” Primary’s tracks are said to be very similar to a dutch artist, Caro Emerald‘s tracks.

News outlet Dispatch reports that Caro Emerald’s producing team gave a few statements about the issue, breaking it down to each of the tracks that are in question. Dispatch spoke with David Schreurs, a member of the songwriting team, producer and manager of the Caro Emerald project. Schreurs shared his thoughts about each track, “I Got C,” “Mr. Lee” and “Happy Ending,” and how the tracks coincide with Caro Emerald’s songs.

Schreurs went on to compare “I Got C” with Caro Emerald’s “You Don’t Love Me,” “Liquid Lunch” and “Paris,” highlighting the similarities with the piano intro, chorus, melody and chords. He comments, “‘I Got C’ sounds like a remix of these songs… The elements he uses are clearly copied from our songs and arrangements.”

He also emphasized that Primary’s “Happy Ending” has the same exact chord scheme as Caro Emerald’s “I Know That He’s Mine.” About Park Ji Yoon’s “Mr. Lee,” Schreurs states that it is a “clear rip off of our song ‘One Day.'”

David Schreurs does state that he acknowledges Primary as a talented producer. But he goes on to say, “He uses our music as a template to create his own, which is an honour but on some songs he’s just going too far with it. I would like to say he should start trusting his own talent, because he sure is a good producer.”

When it boils down to the one question, “Is it plagiarism or not,” Schreurs stated that it’s not up to them but up to a judge to decide.

Primary’s reps spoke with various news agencies after this piece was released. OSEN reports that Primary’s reps commented, “As you can see from the [Dispatch] article, the author did not say it was plagiarism in the end. We hope that this happening will pass by soon.” They also stated, “Primary is receiving a lot of attention for appearing on ‘Infinity Challenge,’ which is why this is becoming a bigger issue. ‘I Got C’ has a completely different arrangement in terms of the technical aspect.

TV Report reports that Primary’s reps stated, “We saw the article. It’s good that this issue seems to be ending well. We will repay you with better music. We hope this will pass by soon.”

The reps continued, “Caro Emerald’s side hasn’t contacted us yet. This happened because of the genre similarities, not because it is plagiarism, so we think this matter will come to an end.”

Meanwhile, Primary appeared on “Infinity Challenge” to pair up with Park Myung Soo for the “2013 Infinity Challenge Freeway Song Festival.” He wrote “I Got C” for Park Myung Soo to perform at the festival and after it aired, the song topped various music charts and proved to be the most popular song out of all the other members.

First, take a listen to Primary’s “I Got C” below:

Next, here are the three songs that are being compared with “I Got C”:

Caro Emerald – “You Don’t Love Me”

Caro Emerald – “Liquid Lunch”

Caro Emerald – “Paris”

Here is the song that is being compared to Primary’s “Mr. Lee”:

Caro Emerald – “One Day”

Finally, the song that is being compared to Primary’s “Happy Ending”:

Caro Emerald – “I Know That He’s Mine”