A conflict that does not date from yesterday. Since 2020, the French duo NinjA Cyborg has accused the German group Rammstein of having covered their song Sunny Road to create Deutschland, a title released a few months later. According to information from Nouvel Obs, the independent expertise mandated by the Paris Court of Appeal has ruled: it is a “voluntary loan” on the part of the metalheads. In other words, plagiarism.
“We are happy that the conclusions are so clear-cut,” admits Marc Botté, the first half of the duo, in the columns of Le Parisien. And there is reason to be relieved. By accusing Rammstein, the Pyrenean duo NinjA Cybord attacked a heavyweight in the music industry, the German group with nearly 12 million listeners per month on Spotify. But if Martin Antiphon and Marc Botté won their case, they were not always supported by the public.
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In 2020, when this crazy story begins, they find themselves accused of plagiarism. “I created this riff. I knew very well that I had not plagiarized them. At first I told myself that it was one of their old songs and that we had done the same thing by chance,” confides Marc Botté to Nouvel Obs, affirming that very quickly, his duo was “violently attacked” by Rammstein fans. “We had to retaliate!”, he says.
Fortunately for NinjA Cyborg, almost four years later, the expert report proves them right, concluding that the metal group “voluntarily borrowed the riff and other melodic elements” from their title Sunny Road, published for the first time times in 2018. Rammstein’s piece dates from March 2019. The report also considers “that no chance encounter can be retained due to too many similarities and that Rammstein has undoubtedly committed plagiarism”, reports Le Parisien.