Did Toby Fox Compose Everything in Undertale? (Investigation: Spear of Justice vs. By God Forsaken)

[@AlexYardZone]

DVD Commentary Track by Uploader: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jIWxeWiXhpZ1mdE

[@jellywillreturn]

@@AlexYardZone Alternatively, watch Malakai’s excellent deconstruction of all the ways you have lied about what you’ve said in this video, and how you’ve tried gaslighting your viewers into believing your own words were never said.

[@BlueTakBlur]

@@jellywillreturn where can I watch that?

[@jellywillreturn]

@@BlueTakBlur Just search “Toby Fox Alex Yard”, or enter his username. It should be a top result for either.

[@Fantazious]

@@BlueTakBlur kzbin.info/www/bejne/i3vXmomvltqplbcsi=gXoh4-7NBy61rJKQ

[@atiredcliche]

​@@jellywillreturn Well, come on, gaslighting is a bit harsh of a term. Gaslighting usually refers to some sort of intimate or repeat real life relationship abuse. It's pretty hard to be gaslit by a total stranger

[@wuwubean]

TLDW: this guy is living in the hell dimension where Chopin and Adele contain Gaster’s theme.

[@mr.j3rs3y]

Ah, a fellow Andrew Cunningham subscriber 🤝

[@conno02]

LMAO

[@williambutcher7429]

Same universe most deltarune theorists are living in though tbh

[@linkex2]

That's a fucking deep cut reference, well done my friend.

[@bionicleapple1254]

This guy is actually Andrew Cunningham if he was evil. He even did the music similarity finder device thingy

[@ShayyTV]

Hi there. I saw that you specifically mentioned me (and Cibles, although I cannot speak entirely for her) in your Twitter post about this video and said you made this on our behalf, or to support me in some way. While I appreciate the gesture... Our issues regarding Undertale's soundtrack with regards to KZbin videos & Content ID are entirely located with the publishing company that currently holds the distribution rights to Undertale/Deltarune's soundtracks, Materia Collective, and nothing to do with Toby Fox. He has, at several points, genuinely helped us out a lot in dealing with Content ID abuse and issues related to making content on the game at all. I don't super appreciate being brought up to support an argument of plagiarism, because I could not disagree more with several of the claims brought up in this video, and because my grievances lie solely with Materia Collective. The only thing I think Toby has done wrong was signing a contract with them at all; however Materia's reputation in the industry was very positive back then and nobody really knew of the underlying issues until later, after it was already too late. One thing I can say regarding the supposed lack of credit issue you bring up is that every song that was not entirely composed by Toby Fox consistently has other contributors credited. Stephanie MacIntire's live instrument contribution to the song "UNDERTALE" is noted explicitly on the Bandcamp page, as well as directly in the game's credits for the Neutral Ending, which is absent from this video in favor of making a point against the True Pacifist credits and "thanking everyone who gave him money", despite the fact that the Neutral Ending is *mandatory* to for a player to view prior to this. Future releases of the soundtrack also include Coda & Flashygoodness because those releases, and only those later releases, contain bonus tracks which they worked on or contributed, such as "Dating Start (FM Version)" and "Bereavement". For Deltarune's soundtrack, Lena Raine is credited for "Cyber Battle (Solo)" and "Attack of the Killer Queen" alongside Marcy Nabors for the latter. These are all publicly available on the soundtrack in various places and on Spotify as well, as well as in the in-game credits for Chapter 2, the place in which these tracks appear. The "no composer credit" thing seems pedantic and unneeded. Tracks are entirely attributed to Toby Fox with specific exception to the things I listed above. It's very clear he composed these tracks alone. As for "Spear of Justice", the example you brought up in the video, while many characteristics are shared, from my own knowledge of music theory, which is over 20+ years now including some time as a music major in college, this largely seems like a coincidence, especially given the context. The introductory motif of "Spear of Justice", like several things in Undertale, is an adaptation of an already existing leitmotif, used in the piece "Undyne". You're probably already aware of this, but I'd figure it's worth stating for someone reading this comment. That original use of the motif shares almost nothing in common with the example you brought up. In an actual case of plagiarism, i.e. Kenji Yamamoto's soundtrack for Dragon Ball Z Kai, the tracks that were stolen were crystal clear, with the exact same structure, notes, even the melody was note-for-note completely identical in some cases. Here, an intro riff shares various similarities but is still different in enough ways where making a plagiarism case is extremely nebulous, especially for such a short length of track. Did Nintendo plagiarize Undertale's "Death by Glamour" in this recent Mario Party trailer? x.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1824506436807795016 Because to me, the answer is clearly no, despite the tracks coincidentally sharing quite a few aspects (structure, rhythm, intervals, progression) for just one introductory riff. It's really difficult for me to see this video as something made in good faith when filled with various condescending asides and remarks about the inner thoughts and intent of somebody else. Even taking jabs at someone for being largely self taught... insulting someone for that, to me as a musician, is unthinkable. Those achievements should be celebrated, not ridiculed. Yes, *most people* do not have explicit knowledge of music theory and will parrot things they do not quite fully understand, that is a true statement, but it does not justify putting those people down in that way or including needless condescending remarks towards both a composer and the fans of his work.

[@Cooley_08]

No way, "7 min. ago"

[@Zosso-1618]

Your last paragraph is my main gripe with this video. Maybe it’s just because I’m not a frequent viewer of Alex’s channel, but the condescending and patronizing remarks were extremely jarring and probably are making me less willing to accept his case even if he’s right. Just not a good look.

[@Rey_Pixels]

@@ShayyTV imo this video comes off in poor taste, whether it had a good motive for being made or not. Neither you or Cibles deserve to have your names dragged through such a tasteless, “i’m implying that i’m being accusatory but keeping it vague” kinda video.

[@Dorked]

@@Zosso-1618 As someone who does watch his videos, they normally don't come across as this condescending, which is my big issue here.

[@itsjustbusiness1989]

watch Alex reply "you have not watched the video". even his defenses are condescending

[@SoundCirclet]

“If you take this melody, divorce it from its original context, alter the time signature, play it in a different key, change a few of the syncopations, walk your dog, call your grandparents, decapitate a female goat and simmer for 10 minutes, it sounds just like this one!!”

[@jackatk]

I have no idea what he was thinking with this one lmao He went through so much effort to show that some Toby Fox songs have similar arrangements of notes to other songs

[@eltiolavara9]

this is some ship of theseus shit

[@nameunknown9393]

This is the badabun mario speedrun of the undertale community

[@rv-pine-deltarune]

It's extremely concerning to see an example of someone caring so little about a creative who was unwillingly forced into the spotlight of culture. Toby Fox is private and reserved due to several KNOWN EVENTS including stalking which stem entirely from his role as UNDERTALE's creator. When a game has such a large following, it is natural for one to become reserved and avoid interacting with people. Will he do so when it's actually important? Yes, yes he will. But this isn't one of those cases. Are we going to say that Super Mario Bros. is plagiarized because songs like the Overworld theme directly quote "Sister Marian" by T-Square? Or the Underground theme, present in all the Mario games quoting "Let's Not Talk About It" by Friendship? You've chosen to present the argument that "composers don't do this" which is very manipulative, seeing as I haven't seen you ever create an original composition-- only MIDI arrangements of existing ones for your essay videos. You also claim to come unbiased with your thoughts on things, but will then show clear bias towards one thing or the other. You played an emotional manipulation card by using KZbinrs' likeness and issues as a crux for gaining support. Could it be that the song is INSPIRED BY this one? And that using a couple notes is just... inspiration? Music is not an endless form. By technicality, compositions can be anything. Music Theory isn't exactly a solid thing, it's a malleable foundation for creatives to work from. However-- when working on basic things, 3/4 time signatures and specific genres... it's possible that you will intentionally or not-- make a direct quote of another song. The video is not "all bad" and people should be speaking more about it from the lens of actual analysis, but what it is to me, as a composer, is manipulative and self-serving.

[@JamangarYT]

I wholly agree with you but there’s something funny about a former toby fox impersonator discussing his privacy online lol. I think it does go to show how little consideration Alex puts into his assessment, Toby doesn’t have the time of day and the reality is that it wasn’t up to him at all.

[@rv-pine-deltarune]

@@JamangarYT I guess there is sort of an underlying degree of irony to it LOL

[@JamangarYT]

@@rv-pine-deltarune difference is that you respect toby, but alex on the other hand….

[@cloverstars_]

there is composer credits in-game. Stephanie MacIntyre is credited specifically for her guitar work in the neutral ending credits, seen after defeating omega flowey (or photoshop flowey if u prefer that name). furthermore they can be found quite plainly in the bandcamp page for the soundtrack. This also applies to deltarune and its soundtrack. deltarune even goes a step further and has credits for Lena Raine and Marcy Nabors's contributions to the ost in the song titles for attack of the killer queen and cyber battle solo.

[@OwlManlololhesofunne6655]

Hey Alex do you wanna respond to this one

[@SnowyJane]

Shut up

[@tovi3280]

and didnt laura shigihara (pvz composer) do the ending songs for deltarune?

[@lbsc1201]

@@tovi3280 She sung them, they were still composed by Toby.

[@AlexYardZone]

There are no composer credits in game. Stephanie MacIntyre is credited as "guitar" which is only an instrument performance. When I first played the game, a credit of just "Guitar" indicated Stephanie had provided the soundtrack's guitar work on Home, Undertale-TM, or maybe more (can't recall if there's any other guitar tracks). Bringing in someone to record a guitar arpeggio performance is definitely not a composer credit. Then you find out in future releases of Undertale's content, that Stephanie's guitar contribution contributes only to Undertale-TM. This also lacks a composer credit and leaves many possibilities: did Toby write the loop and ask Stephanie to perform it? Did Stephanie write the loop, Toby came across it and obtained permission to use it in-game? Was the guitar loop composition acquired in a sample pack that gives you arpeggios to use? All of these unecessary grey area is cleared up by the standard practice of crediting the composer. Why does Toby omit composer credits on official releases, providing them only when required by a third party? The fact is the game itself really needs those credits. Otherwise it goes uncredited to people who actually play the game. The fact that the main releases of the soundtrack on CD and vinyl lack composer credits isn't helping things. No one should have to go on an internet scavenger hunt in order to get basic data points on the game's contributors. Why Toby would credit himself as a composer before the game's release when asking people for Money on kickstarter - but then remove that credit from the actual game itself and its official soundtracks?

[@Dorked]

Having properly finished the video, there are a few things I'd like to touch on just because I still stand by that a lot of this feels like it was done in bad faith, even if it wasn't intended as such. First, on the subject of structural similarities, I think it's kind of odd to single a repeated phrase + key change as an example when that's a very common compositional convention in general. It's like how so many songs may use the same four chords (as has been parodied to death), or the structural conventions of, say, A+A+B+A or like... verse + chorus + verse + chorus + bridge + verse. To act like Toby needs to credit Skyfire is a really big stretch to me still, because Toby draws his musical inspirations from video game music and is very open and honest about the inspirations in his work. A lot of those references are done as very deliberate and open homage, such as Oh! True Love paying tribute to the opera scene in Final Fantasy VI. I just find it insanely unlikely that Toby was aware of this niche metal band, when the simpler explanation is that he took the Undyne motif and rearranged it in a way that is more high energy, 6/8 that just so happened to sound *vaguely* similar. A more likely source of inspiration is The Landing from Final Fantasy VIII, as he is a Final Fantasy fan, and it *also* features the exact key change structure as SoJ and is also a song in 6/8. Even then, I wouldn't say SoJ is a direct quote of The Landing, but the instrumentation choices are quite similar, as well as some intervals. I also immediately think of, say, Magus' theme from Chrono Trigger as having a very similar tempo and "feel" to Spear of Justice in a "vibes" sense. Isn't it better to give the benefit of the doubt than to compare some loose "this sounds a little similar" to someone simply transposing the Simpsons theme into another key or arranging the Friends theme to the style of the Sonic 3 Special Stage? Visual notes on a sheet don't really mean much when Toby composes by ear in FL studio, anyway. I don't even think the severity of the supposed similarities are in the same ballpark as the Green Greens and Super Mario world example or the Marble Zone and Frank Sinatra example, where they are almost direct quotes. Or the example I mentioned in my previous comment, with Elecman and the Journey song. I think this attitude that it's about the integrity of music composition feels kind of... gatekeepy, for lack of a better word, but also ignores the vast musical history of things like sampling. I understand wanting to encourage composers to not lean too hard into references/quotes in their compositions, but sometimes people just happen to happen upon a melody that sounds similar to another song because it sounds cool. You said you wanted to be objective in your investigation, but I just really don't see a lot of objectivity in this video when by your own admission, you were partially driven to do this because people on your community posts didn't react favorably to the idea. Having read those community posts, most of the negative comments weren't even personal attacks, but simple disagreements. I have ADHD, so I experience pretty severe rejection sensitivity dysphoria, and I do sympathize if it felt that way because sometimes even slight disagreements can feel so much bigger. I'm not saying that's what happened here, 'cause like hell am I gonna diagnose anybody, but I just think it wasn't the healthiest of motivations in terms of propelling a video like this forward, if that makes sense. And for however much as you claimed to have not wanted to accuse Toby Fox of plagiarism, you still said that he needs to publicly apologize, do better, and be transparent... about what is most likely a coincidence. It'd be one thing if Spear of Justice quoted, say, a specific song in one of the games he lists as inspiration. Vs. Susie very much pays musical homage to the bus theme from Earthbound, and in that case it's easy to go "oh yeah, this sounds similar to an Earthbound song. That tracks with Toby's influences." But saying Spear of Justice isn't an original composition is such a reach to me as a fellow composer who has done consciously referential tracks in my own fanworks as well as more original compositions. Doing a deliberate reference in a track... it's like a conscious thing, and in Toby's case, it's often little easter eggs or it's very blatant what he's drawing from, and to act like he's ~secretly plagiarizing~ is genuinely just... not great. As I said elsewhere, I think if you had approached this more in a constructive sense of "this song is similar to this obscure metal track, what do you think?" instead of framing it as an investigation that "needed" to be one and implying that Toby isn't being honest with the composition of Undertale, it would not be nearly as contentious. Like he mentioned the song Redline Day from the movie Redline as a song that reshaped the song "Undertale" and led to the "His Theme"/"Memory" leitmotif even becoming a thing. I feel like Toby's love of sharing what inspires his work would push him to shout out something so obscure if it was truly something he did on purpose and not coincidence. And I'm seeing people in the comments here who think people who disagree with this video are "Toby shills." Having the pinned comment be one that boils down the legitimate criticisms with this video as purely hate and negativity kind of leans into a sense of confirmation bias that I don't think is healthy. And I do wanna stress, I am a fan of your music theory videos. It's clear that you have a passion for music, for composition, and for the theory behind it, but those videos are far more positive in tone and don't make attacks on the integrity of the composers featured. That the last fifteen minutes *feel* like an attack on Toby's competency as a composer and his intentions really, really doesn't sit right, even if you didn't intend it as an accusation of plagiarism. As another commenter pointed out, people will still read between the lines when a video carries a certain tone, and I don't really see the tone of this video as in good humor the way you mentioned in that last section. Others, like Shayy, have pointed out how Toby's choice of music label with Materia is not his fault when Materia's shady practices were not yet known until the Celeste debacle and other similar situations. The thing is, contracts, licensing agreements, etc have a ton of red tape. The music industry is notoriously predatory toward artists, and even successful artists can be trapped with bad contracts and unable to change distributors. For the record, I don't think you should receive hate mail or be bullied for the existence of this video, but I do think that in the future, it would be wise to watch the tone and severity of accusations like this. As someone who enjoys the informative videos you make about music and music theory, it was just really disappointing to see such a heavy handed approach, acting like this was something that needed to be exposed. A lot of the reason I was so upset in my earlier comment was coming from a place of being a fan of your other work as well as someone with a history in music myself and seeing what seemed like a really hostile approach to a topic that means a lot to me.

[@brawlmasterjoelstudios]

Thank you, this sums up my feelings quite well.

[@Dorked]

@@brawlmasterjoelstudios Yeah, I wanted to at least try to comment in good faith after finishing, but like... idk. As a fellow composer, I still feel like a lot of this was misguided.

[@FreshTillDeath56]

As an aspiring non-music theory composer, I'm confused off the wall by what the takeaway of this was even supposed to be. If we should take examples on the basis of Completely Original / Mostly Original / Not Original, how the hell is anyone supposed to do that without music theory knowledge? That's incredibly elitist!!!

[@Dorked]

@@FreshTillDeath56 It's super duper elitist. I understand that Alex has a passion for music, but I feel like the way that passion was conveyed very much comes from the lens of like... pushing only one type of creativity as acceptable. Iteration is a part of all artforms. There is genuine love put into the referential music Toby does. He is very open, honest, and sincere. His referential tracks are done to pay tribute, not to sneakily steal. That's why I proposed The Landing as a more likely source of inspiration for SoJ in the first place.

[@mBluett]

I can't believe Skyfire ripped off Final Fantasy VI! Not making any accusations, but some transparency would be appreciated!

[@momodori-p]

yeah lmao this guy stole megalovania from that earthbound mod. what a hack.

[@momodori-p]

(slash jay)

[@conno02]

a halloween hack, even

[@Colddirector]

It’s unbelievable what that Tony Fox asshole got away with. He plagiarized some teenager’s mod with ZERO permission.

[@Colddirector]

It’s unbelievable what Tony Fox got away with. He stole music from a literal TEENAGER.

[@ArtsyPuppy]

@@Colddirectoroh but it gets worse, you see not only did he steal it for undertale, but in a little known webcomic named “homestuck”… he stool it AGAIN!! with even MORE similarities to the original!! absolutely distasteful, mr. fox, for shame!!

[@BobbyLobby-qz2hm]

This is like the evil version of that Andrew Cunningham video

[@uboa8060]

Except actually not. Andrew makes great effort to stress that a similar contour doesn't equal the same melody, it has to be similar enough intervals. This guy is just waffling.

[@NottSaying]

I take this video and evcerything in it to be objectively true. I must also believe that Lavender Town contains secret lore to Gaster and we must analyze all Pokemon games to find our favorite mysteryman in order to undertstand Deltarune's plot.

[@insertnamehere1398]

@@uboa8060 .. yea that's why it's the evil version. it's the exact opposite

[@SkyKidShyKid]

​@uboa8060 yeah thats the joke, this video is the exact opposite of that hence why it's the evil one.

[@uboa8060]

Spear of Justice (and Battle Against a True Hero) are where a lot of Toby's musical references to the Touhou Project were stuffed in, to the point that both tracks may as well be Touhou fan songs using some Undertale instruments along with touhou soundfont, especially the ZUNpets. As a matter of fact, ZUN and Toby recently collaborated with a mashup of Battle Against a True Hero and U.N. Owen was Her? for the touhou fan game Danmaku Kagura. Touhou's DNA is all over Spear of Justice, Battle against a True Hero, really the entire soundtrack, Undertale's narrative and gameplay (the bullet hell gameplay) just... Everywhere. More so than some random pop song. Want some more musical examples of touhou in Undertale? In "Your Best Nightmare", during the green soul and yellow soul segments, the underlying second hand melody to each of them respectively is Hartmann's Youkai Girl and Bad Apple!! In Deltarune, Field of Hopes and Dreams is also entirely a Touhou Project tribute. It's way more in character for Toby to reference touhou than to blatantly plagiarize a song that's completely out of tune with the rest of Undertale's DNA. Bro was onto absolutely nothing

[@sameman6884]

How am i supposed to know this video isn't plagiarized? It doesn't say "original video" on it anywhere...

[@biggcheese012]

Yeah, this is actually my original video. I wrote it, edited it, uploaded it, the whole shebang. Now, I’m not ACCUSING him of stealing it. I’ll just let everyone draw their own conclusion from the evidence I’ve presented. 🙄🤷🏻‍♂️😂

[@mimszanadunstedt441]

omegalul, when you say it like that, the logic in this video is pretty forced

[@biggcheese012]

@@mimszanadunstedt441 Forced is an understatement lol. He knows his arguments don’t hold up. He didn’t do his due diligence. I’m just glad we can all have a little fun clowning on this loser now. It’s been a blast. He wants bad faith arguments? Fine be me. Allow me to play along. 😂

[@someobscuremusicchannel]

@@biggcheese012 I agree. I never liked this guy from the beginning, he always struck an odd chord with me no pun intended, the way he talks and his opinions are so strange and all around he just gives me uncanny vibes. I'm glad more and more people are feeling it now too.

[@biggcheese012]

@@someobscuremusicchannel Off topic, but I just checked out some of your remixes and I really vibe with them. Keep up the good work! 🎶

[@TannerTheDean]

stretching so hard you are gonna pull a hamstring

[@sauvagess]

As if you would know.

[@mr.j3rs3y]

Stretching so hard you’d make medieval stretch racks blush.

[@gloverlover]

the musical equivalent of "painting the Mona Lisa green" would actually be taking a digital file of the song and removing the high and low frequencies. What Toby Fox actually did, however, is paint from scratch the Mona Lisa (if he knew about it) or a human girl sitting in front of a valley (if he didn't know about it) with different brushes, a different canvas, different tree positions, different colors, a different art style, a different sky, a different pose, the same facial expression but with a different hair color and hair style for the human girl. That is different compared to the Mona Lisa, don't you think? Do you imply that we should hate Notch for knowingly copying Infiniminer's graphical style of a cube world sandbox in Minecraft? No, because Minecraft was transformative (infinite worlds with biomes and mobs and survival and creative modes) and made without using Infiniminer's leaked source code, just as Toby Fox made Spear of Justice with a different audio workstation, instruments, and NOTES in the REST of Spear of Justice. (We hate Notch for other reasons, though) Even if the intro of By God Forsaken were to be what you imply to be plagiarized as to not say it directly so that you straw man your criticism (Which it likely is not plagiarized, as there is a released beta version of Spear of Justice which has audibly similar but different notes to the final version's intro of Spear of Justice, and Toby likely built on the idea of how those notes should sound), What about the rest of the song? I'd understand if it plagiarized the whole song in its entirety, even if it had different instruments, but if you build on a small part of something so much and so differently, then it is transformative, original unique art. Art is derivative, and if you like only what you may think and deem to be "Original" art and impose your subjective snobbish standards (pretty much Art eugenics) onto artists without both thoroughly researching those artists that you both like and/or dislike, whilst also creating a conspiracy theory that Toby Fox not liking to engage socially or publically (without caring whether if it were to be from being reserved, being anxious, having trauma, etc.) is commiting conspiracy or hiding something nefarious such as what you imply to be plagiarism (no no no PLEASE you did not imply plagiarism because you definitely did not deliberately choose to not include the word Plagiarism, Plagiarize or Plagiarized in your script so that you can straw man that when all else fails!), then you are self-centered, tyrannical, manipulative and unempathetic.

[@biggcheese012]

Yep. We stand on the shoulders of giants. Good art will influence future art. That is okay! There is a giant difference between plagiarism and homage. This isn’t fucking James Somerton we’re talking about lol. Don’t know why Alex is being so thick in the head. My guess? He either: A-Really thought he was a genius for making this and that people would grovel at his feet and thank him for taking down the big mean Toby Fox. Or B-He’s being dense on purpose to generate controversy and bring people to his channel. Based on what I’ve seen, I’m inclined to say A. Guy’s ego is simply too big for me to bet against it. 🤷🏻‍♂️

[@brastionskywarrior6951]

Bro is mad

[@Ah2o5b]

Tbh his example is 100% accurate. He makes a valid points you on the other hand are blindly defeanding without any solid arguments and exposing yourself as an incompetant musitian.

[@Ah2o5b]

​@@biggcheese012why are you making assumptions about the guy when he clearly states that the situation is complecated and encourage us to do our research. He didn't comeup with the idea of toby possible plagirism it is well known online and alot of the videos faced negative backclash to the point where most of them were taken down. Of course Toby was awfully quite about it

[@GSavel]

"I'm not unpacking that." - Sebastian "Evil Toby Fox" Wolff, 2024

[@GraySlothPlaysGames]

33:13 big lol, The audacity to just give all these songs the green circle wow radio head was literally sued for copyright infringement for the song Creep and it's similarities to The Air I Breathe Also Karma Police is a full green original? Sexy Sadie might want some words with you lol. And this is just off the top of my head, I am sure others could point out other comparable songs.

[@Yipper64]

Ah see this is a comment that really throws a wrench in this whole video. He kind of begs the question "well if you think the Toby fox is more in the centre of the plagiarism scale give other examples" kind of hard for the average person to do, so the point almost cant be argued against. But here you are showing that his reasoning is flawed given that the songs he's labeled at 100% original have literally been *sued* for that exact reason. Meaning some kind of double standard has to be at play, or at least ignorance as to if other songs have taken a bit too much inspiration from other things. Which is still a double standard because if he's gonna make that list he should have just as much of a fine tooth comb on that list as he did for the undertale soundtrack.

[@AlexYardZone]

Alright, after looking into this, here's my thoughts: Of all my years of being a huge radiohead fan, I never knew about the situation surrounding creep. What does it indicate that I could immerse myself in their music, see them live multiple times, talk with other fans, learn about and be influenced by their creative process by reading about them in articles and communities....but somehow this significant detail eluded my attention? Maybe it exposes that there's a taboo surrounding it, which my comments today could do my small part to help break the taboo. Like in all my years, how many times have I come across people alluding to the running joke that Radiohead largely stopped playing Creep at live concerts.....and yet literally none of those mentions discloses the songwriting situation surrounding Creep, as, that's absolutely a relevant aspect to the topic of why they stopped performing it. not a confirmed cause-and-effect but certainly relevant. What's important with Creep is that it was addressed appropriately - a retroactive composer credit and revenue share. It adds to the point that even the most innovative, original, creative music composers should definitely be held accountable for specific choices they've made. And their redefining music throughout their career has no bearing on individual situations, and yeah millions of people taking cues ought to know how to make sense of it. After listening to Sexy Sadie, it's certainly a yellow pan category at a minimum, and further close review could show it's in the Red Pan. so learning this about Radiohead in particular is a shocking discovery, but it has little impact on the ultimate takeaways of this video: -For a heart-on-sleeve 40 minute video, if this was the biggest factual error, then that's within the bounds of natural human error. -The overall message of this video is unchanged, it's just that the example I happened to select was counterproductive, but the fact that Radiohead was properly held responsible for their decision very much consistent with this video's message. It's also emphasizing that the problem may be more widespread - but kept underground by taboo - than most of us could have realized. This is the exact conversation a video like this is intended to begin.

[@capitanMCmufin]

​@@AlexYardZone how have you been a "huge Radiohead fan for years" and not know about the Creep thing? I'm nowhere near a fan of them (nothing against them just not my cup of tea) and even I knew that, and this whole "The backlash just means people are always of the conversation" attitude is straight up flat earther mentality

[@johnnybarrett5108]

@@AlexYardZone Yeah idk that you can extrapolate any meaning from not having known about the controversy surrounding Creep. I’ve been a Radiohead fan for nearly 20 years, seen them live 5x, etc., yet I know/knew about it. In fact I don’t know too many people who are die-hard fans who haven’t heard about that. So what does that say about your level of Radiohead fandom? To be clear I’m not questioning your level of fandom or knowledge of the band - but see how easy it is to flip your initial question around? My point is that it doesn’t really prove anything about the situation except that, well… somehow it got by you. Oye this whole thing has been such a shitshow. I haven’t cared enough to comment up until I saw this exchange here, a month late at that, but still I wanna say that I miss when you used to just (brilliantly) analyze video game music rather than this s t r e t c h of an attempt to launch a smear campaign. 🤦🏻‍♂️ But it’s clear this video got ratioed hard so maybe you’ve learned something. Maybe…

[@AlexYardZone]

@johnnybarrett5108 I won radiohead tickets by answering the most triva questions in a terrestrial radio contest in the 2000s. What does it show that I was unaware of Creep's authorship? It shows there's a massive taboo around this problem, a taboo that my video is doing its part to break. A "ratio" is nothing more than a politics vote, which is more affirming than it is discouraging. I would on the other hand be discouraged if someone stepped up with a substantive response that debunks my points - nothing of the kind has happened. The closest thing was the video 'Did Alex Yard accuse Toby Fox of plagiarism?' I responded to that video live on the air and accomplished a lot of common ground with the person who made it. On the other hand, a slew of vague whiny comments trying to scare me away from the topic, are an indication that my video was thoroughly successful in its aims. The video didn't need to change your mind. It only needed to define where I stand.

[@eddie-roo]

I mean, I’m pretty sure the Undertale ST is not advertised as original because a good chunk of it predates undertale’s conception. Toby Fox reuses his past compositions quite a lot and a great part of the undertale soundtrack, like Megalovania, Heartache, Death by Glamour, Another Medium, etc. Can trace their origin to past projects, like the Halloween hack, an earthbound fansong tribute album, Cucumber Quest and Homestuck. Even recent projects of his reuse his old music, like how the greatest living show was originally composed for Dweller’s empty path, Pokémon SWSH’s battle tower(?) music references the baby is me and the Deltarune soundtrack has music from multiple past projects. Like, if you are familiar with Toby’s musical trajectory, you’d see it’s fairly clear why it’s not called original.

[@_UnknownStory]

Hol' up... let him cook (himself) ...yeah this is a goodbye. I suddenly don't want that in-depth analysis of Hill Top Zone's music anymore, sorry

[@Vault-vw8fw]

He really thought he was cooking with this one lmao.

[@tehZevo_]

ok zoomer

[@silversoul5285]

Well folks, I guess the Tristan chord is cancelled too now. Who knew Debussy was such a hack?

[@LauraPlatt]

I'm sorry, but you have not done anywhere near enough research to be making this kind of video, especially considering the seriousness of the accusations you're making (which, to be clear, is what you're doing throughout the video). This is irresponsible.

[@102kr]

I recommend checking out Alex’s community tab posts from 2 months ago. Here’s how he openly spoke about Toby before this video. Make your own conclusions. “I thought about whether to reach out to Toby for an opportunity to make a statement, but he's had like a decade to do so and has made a concious choice to live secretively and reclusively, out of reach of public discussions and interviews. And that only increases my negative reaction to all this, that he would use other people's composition IP in his own apparently-self-made works, not credit the original creators, and then live in the shadows, descending from his ivory tower to be preachy for something that relates to his own selfish interests (such as lambasting Gametheory for not crediting the fangame creators that gametheory streamed their fangames.) Like, you're gonna emerge from the shadows to lash out only at a public figure who didn't credit fangame creators, when you yourself have not credited the composers whose works you are drawing integral components from, and you hide from any accountability through your reclusive lifestyle.”

[@jellywillreturn]

Imagine hating a person for making "a conscious choice to live secretively and reclusively, out of reach for public discussions and interviews". Alex must have had a mental episode, I don't remember him being like this.

[@WavePrism]

"toby fox is a bad person because he isn't as upclose and personal about every single thing ever on the internet as me." insane

[@blueloops7437]

I don’t blame Toby for wanting to “live in the shadows”, especially after all of this christ.

[@ethanalspencer7294]

Bro's GIGA jelly lol

[@102kr]

@@blueloops7437​​⁠​​⁠​​⁠​​⁠​⁠​⁠​​⁠​⁠​​⁠​​⁠​​⁠Toby: “​​⁠​​⁠​I'm the type of person who gets anxious easily. To be honest, I get anxious just going out of the house” Alex: “nah, you’re just hiding from *accountability* , you hypocrite”

[@scalarKnight]

you would definitely hate jazz if you think this is plagiarism

[@lollipop_124]

please tell me you're referencing the lick

[@scalarKnight]

@@lollipop_124 jazz as a whole really but yeah that too

[@lollipop_124]

@@scalarKnight i see lol

[@linkex2]

He'd have a heart attack if you showed him Breakcore

[@Imperials3nate]

Alex Yard is a very interesting case of "guilt." On one hand, his crime here is small compared to hundreds of other online influencers. But on the other hand, he REFUSES to understand anyone asking him to reconsider. Should we judge Alex based on the magnitude of his crime or by how willing he is to apologise?

[@AlexYardZone]

When I first gathered this information I showed it to a sample size of about 50 people. There were two types of responses. Some folks shared my concerns about the composition overlap and agreed that it would definitely be the right move to speak up about it. The other type of response was either abruptly ghosting to disappear without explanation, or getting really testy and defensive about even talking about the topic.

So when I rolled out the video to my entire KZbin channel, I got the same types of responses. Nothing about that is surprising or concerning. Your reaction is very much within expected parameters. There's nothing I should have to apologize for, but if you have something specific on your mind I would be willing to consider it. Basically if you are for a reason upset about the contents of the video, your move is to explain why you disagree and or vote with your “wallet,” i.e. your viewership. But the idea that someone like you is here still leaving comments pressuring me to act a certain way, indicates that the video is on to something substantive and should remain in place for others to discover.

[@beansl]

Not a chance this dude apologizes

[@somescrub885]

There's pretty much no chance that he's actually going to grow from this, he's doubled down 100 times, he clearly believes himself to be in the right. It's pretty pathetic to watch.

[@everythingpizzaandknuckles6268]

@@AlexYardZone Yikes, man. I had nothing but respect for you since I absolutely adored your video making style and loved watching your Sonic videos to help me learn more music theory, but I'm beyond disappointed with you here. You made a mistake. Just own up to it and admit where you were wrong, and we can all move on with our days. This whole charade of digging your heels in and doubling down despite all this backlash is extremely childish, especially when all you need to do is acknowledge what you did do wrong here and say you're sorry for it. Regardless of whether you think you had some good points in this video or not, or if you think your reasoning behind it was valid, the fact of the matter is that the main idea of your video is fundamentally incorrect, and your complete and absolute refusal to come to terms with that is ruining your relationship with your audience and by proxy ruining your channel, and is harmful to everyone involved with or mentioned in this video. I truly do respect you for the good, informative videos you've made in the past and the creative direction they take, but this travesty is dampening my enthusiasm. This could all be over if you just admitted that you made a mistake, and we could all move on with our lives. I think you're a well-intentioned man who generally known what he's talking about, and the best course of action you could possibly take here is to accept this video as an anomaly and a rare miss for you, and move on with your life. I really do hope to see you move past this with grace and humility. Good day.

[@archonicmakes]

to your point at the beginning about the lack of text stating “original soundtrack”: the bandcamp credits entry states toby fox as the sole creator, with the exception of guitar on track 71 (Undertale) by stephanie mcintyre

[@MrF3legendary]

Why did you bring up Toby putting kickstarter backers in Undertale's credits as some sort of dunk? (25:20) I got the impression you consider Toby crediting his backers to be greedy or arrogant or something (in contrast to not crediting the band that may have inspired one version of the track). Have you played any other crowd funded game before? Almost all of them do that. Rain World is the first that comes to my mind. Idk it just rubbed me the wrong way is all, the comment felt mean.

[@MrF3legendary]

btw, I realized in context with all the other comments that mine probably came off way more hostile than I intended. I think this video is mostly fine, the music theory analysis is super interesting and the musical similarities and differences between Spear of Justice and By God Forsaken was cool to see demonstrated. I've also enjoyed your other videos too (sorry it took for me disagreeing with one of your videos to finally comment) However I think the musical facts and your analysis would have been way more than enough to stand on their own, and including remarks like the one I commented about only served to worsen your point and make you seem like you would have said anything at all, instead of just points that you thought about and took seriously. For another example, take the very next frame from when I linked, which contains some baffling South Park screenshots and a Toby Fox quote which seems completely innocuous to me with your commentary about his nerve or naivete for him saying it. I haven't seen South Park so the images mean nothing to me, and if that's the best quote you have to demonstrate Toby's naivete then it's lost on me, is it because 'sounds similar' is an accidental admission of plagiarism? I feel stupid for assuming that because it's a bad faith interpretation (on both you and Toby), and yet it's the only one I can make. You probably should have explained it more or removed it. I wish you the best and hope the negative comments don't get you down. I feel I should repeat I really like your other videos :D

[@jellywillreturn]

Jesus Christ, that line was so embarrassing. Like, who is this guy and what happened to the real Alex?

[@MalakaiDerg]

@@jellywillreturn Maybe this was the real Alex all along

[@TheAuthorStudios]

@@MalakaiDerg i mean i rewatched his videos a buncha times, and there is a bit of a trough line that the guy is very pretentions and deals with people having different opnions by trying to dowplay them with the weirdest of reasons but those were isolated moments here and there, the only time in the past he made an entire video with that tone was his 'the REAL way to play sonic 3' one, taht's on the second channel, so obviously not as big rach so yeah sad to say but i think this is more likely a mask-off moment than a humble misstep.

[@TheAuthorStudios]

@@jellywillreturn I mean to be fair That's about the same level as saying the US Sonic CD OST is this evil corporate capitalist moment of removing artistic value for the sake of gaining more profit, and also sneakily implying it to be some sort of 'US imperialism stealing and erasing other people's' moment.

[@freezeoicegod]

despite high you reached the jar of cookies only seems further

[@SomeUsernameSomeoneElseTookIt]

wise words

[@jackatk]

Toby Fox has written and released over 15 hours of music, of course some of it has similarities with other songs 😭

[@fuzzyd1436]

The similarities really only exist in a vacuum "see! This part was done later on in a similar manner" meanwhile the part you mention is also already a heavily different piece that only looks similar if your assumptions about previous similarities are true

[@Paledoptera]

you completely lost me at "this NEEDED to happen to toby fox, he had this coming". what could have been an interesting video about similarities in song structure and where inspiration COULD have possibly come from for one of undertale's best songs ended up as what's basically a smug hit piece that polices what you can be inspired by or not, even IF toby had never heard the song before absolute trash video

[@michaelshamus5059]

the reason for the different credits at 23:03 is because the undertale CD has bonus tracks by other people...

[@AlexYardZone]

One of the version has "Music by Toby Fox" and the other doesn't have "Music by Toby Fox"

[@102kr]

@@AlexYardZone​​⁠Seriously? What do you think is meant with “by Toby Fox”? That he made the packaging? The physical disks? No one is gonna see an item called “UNDERTALE *Original Soundtrack* ” with the credit “by Toby Fox” and ask “but who made the music?” The CD version also features the two guest songs that are not part of the Original Soundtrack and not made by Toby Fox. Wouldn’t putting “Music by Toby Fox” actually be *less transparent* ? There *is* music in the CD set that was not made by him… So The Original Soundtrack is “by Toby Fox” and the music he didn’t make gets *their own credits* . The vinyl doesn’t have any guest songs so it’s “music by Toby Fox”

[@SenatorMailman]

​@@AlexYardZonedo you have the CD and vinyl?

[@tigerbear5845]

Using your own logic, "By God Forsaken" would be plagiarizing Final Fantasy 8's "The Landing." Specifically, around 50 seconds into the track. From some googling, FF8 was released in 1999, and By God Forsaken was released in 2001. (Though I've seen "By God Forsaken" with "1999 demo" in brackets.) I highlighted doubt Skyfire somehow plagiarized Final Fantasy 8 *_the same year it was released_* so it's likely it's just a coincidence like Spear of Justice is. EDIT: It seems like Dorked beat me to the punch, as her second comment already mentions FF8's "The Landing." Didn't notice she left it already when I was writing this. EDIT 2: Adding this in case you try to pull the "I didn't accuse Toby of plagiarism" card because you are very much insinuated that's what this video was doing. Seeing as you called for Toby Fox to apologize for this and give credit to Skyfire even though this was likely a coincidence (again, the "By God Forsaken" and "FF8's The Landing" comparison.) If it's just a coincidence then what's the issue here? You can't expect every composer to have an encyclopedic knowledge of music just so they don't accidentally make a song similar to someone else.

[@vikaego2138]

oh yeah switching a songs key to another and rearranging notes... suspicious.

[@torino20]

Wow... it's almost...... like you're making a different song!

[@yoshihammerbro435]

I just want to understand tho, like switching a songs key really doesnt do much, right?

[@piroshiki-san]

@@yoshihammerbro435 It does nothing, to be almost exact

[@ihaetschool3361]

@@piroshiki-san actually, the right key can be important in specific scenarios. i would know

[@epicgamer-ur1wg]

3:45 actually, the exact position of the notes in the scale is in fact the most important part. The melodies are not similar at all. The syncopation choices in spear of justice are extremely common. It’s based on a 3:2 polyrhythm. It also happens in ruins, heartache, waterfall, battle against a true hero, and probably some other songs i forgot about. Also 6/8 and not 5/4 and it does matter. Lol You fell off, im sory

[@Lunar_Leit]

if Koji kondo didn't steal from Morning Glory, i don't see how this isn't just inspiration at best. Songs can share a whole ton of aspects purely out of coincidence because of how normalized certain music structures and genres should sound like. i honestly think it's hard to make something that doesn't sound like something that already exists. you would have to make something considered "abstract" according to 99% of people's music taste because of how structured music is now. music has no rules, but it's like cooking recipes, if you're gonna make a pop song, you're probably gonna do certain things that has been done a billion times (knowingly or unknowingly). and that's okay. also, he credits plenty, what are you talking about.

[@FunkMcLovin]

I'm glad someone knows what they're talking about.

[@elizabethdespair]

youre right alex , it was actually ME, i was the one who wrote ALL of UNDERTALES unoriginal soundtrack

[@bassthereploid7095]

Wait, For real?

[@SomeRobloxDudeWasTaken]

Dun dun dun!!!!

[@MafaroChinyerere]

Gasp

[@cammyboig]

I've been saying this for years!! 😡 Megalovania is LITERALLY just twinkle twinkle little star but with the notes rearranged!!

[@mimszanadunstedt441]

Omegalul

[@whirlpooltunes]

True!

[@ThisIsAHandle-xz5yo]

Twinkle Teinkle little star is just a copy of Rock stone hit mammoth bone by Gronk And The Cavemen with different notes

[@mimszanadunstedt441]

@@ThisIsAHandle-xz5yo inb4 it goes back infinitely lol

[@NumbHydro]

Really?

[@jellywillreturn]

Yeah, this is one of those “retract the video and apologize” scenarios.

[@DixieChix]

Ngl, this was probably one of the most unintentionally funny videos that I ever saw on this platform, right up there with the Nostalgia Critic's The Wall review lmao; I doubt that was your intention though, so I'll go ahead and explain why this might sound just a bit hyperbolic and frankly meanspirited for no particular reason on your part: First of all, the fact that you're using only, like, small portions of the music and taking them away from the original context for each of them is an interesting choice to say the least; not to mention the overall connection that you're pointing out is so tenuous that frankly you can make the argument for pretty much everything that uses this exact kind of progression, like for example the fact that while these might sound similar, even through the little snippets you showed there are some noticeable enough differences, like for example the choice of dotted notes on that Skyfire track, alongside the 5-1 move in the melody which isn't even remotely present in Spear of Justice and the turnaround not even sounding close to the same thing (which is funny how you're focusing on the number of extensions while completely ignoring the one aspect that would be the most listenable one by far lol), and even the fact that they don't even use the same time signature, which as much as you want to say doesn't really matter and that there's still a resemblance, is still interesting considering that if Toby was trying to plagiarize this as you were saying then why did he deliberately chose to go as far as changing the time signature, especially since they would've still have had to arrange it to accommodate to this new timesig, which honestly sounds like too much effort to begin with if you were simply willing to plagiarize a tune from somebody else? (also nice going not even showing actual snippets of the music when talking about the reverse Andalusian cadence that both tracks apparently use and using a very loose and quick example that doesn't prove much lmao) Second of all, you seem to have a... interesting view of Toby Fox as a person don't you; like, there's so much undeserved hatred thrown towards the guy for no real reason that I don't even know where to begin, and yeah, I get that there were allegations of plagiarism thrown at him by other people before, but that's the thing: all of those are merely _allegations_ and have no real proof to them, just like this video, except while most of them at least didn't try to completely shame him or treat him badly for it, you did. And well, I dunno, I just find that interesting really. Anyways, I thought your videos were cool, but after both this and that Sonic 3 video you did I don't think I'll bother watching you anymore, so yeah, bye.

[@goatsoup]

It's weird, I used to be really into sonic music sometime ago and back then I thought this guy's videos were not that good. He often pumped out videos on music in a very like, quantity over quality manner, there were mistakes/transcriptions errors and overall just wasn't very good, usually missed a lot of the interesting music theory that went into some of the tracks he covered and was very surface level. I went off to direct and manage an undertale fangame and rarely have been in the sonic music scene and low and behold, this guy's name comes up yet again! Though it's kinda cathartic everyone's now wising up that he's not a very good youtuber after trying to tell people.

[@FunkMcLovin]

It's very transparent, isn't it?

[@Zsaber64]

If you want a palate cleanser from this "non-accusation" I'd recommend checking out Adam Neely's videos regarding some of the big music copyright lawsuits from the last several years. A breath of fresh air in comparison to the stink of this video.

[@Zsaber64]

Or watch Andrew Cunningham. Or RelaxAlax. Or basically anyone else.

[@gym3857]

regardless of whether or not this video actually does anything meaningful or positive for anyone, i must say, the song that is the supposed "original" here, that being By God Forsaken, actually goes fucking hard. i know for sure that the only thing beneficial i got from this video is knowledge of this song and the band that made it.

[@flophawk]

theres literally an older version of spear of justice with very little similarity to what it's supposedly "plagiarizing" theres a major step in the descision process that can be easily found with a little research (especially if youre Such A Big Fan You Guys) and it nullifies all this weird gallavanting not that theres a lack of ppl spitroasting alex in the comments already but this is an *_very_* important piece i dont see being brought up if i may do a little flaming of my own though, even if its an unnecessary contribution- i like alexs other videos, i like learning about music theory. this level of bullheaded "i am Big Smart so listen to me, i simply *_have_* to comment with my Wide Expertise" pretentiousness makes me want to unlearn it. be constructive not reductive.

[@DE23]

23:02 Okay I can explain the discrepencies here. Disc 2 Track 07 and Undertale are the same song Disc 2 Tracks 38 and 39 are bonus tracks that are not on the vinyl

[@AlexYardZone]

Interesting these are the details you're pointing out, as they were not the point of that at all. The point is that one of them says "Music by Toby Fox" and the other has nothing of the kind. They also both lack any composer credits.

[@MyBedIsInAWall]

⁠​⁠@@AlexYardZoneinteresting how in this video you point out how having credit to toby fox in his own game that mentions multiple times it’s made by him. The whole situation is because of materia collective being an unprofessional company I understand where you’re coming from but please do more research on a situation before covering it. As shown under Shayy’s comment you do not know materia is the issue here

[@milesium-487]

This is the Undertale/Deltarune community equivalent to Grouch's "Fixing TF2's Terrible Weapons" video

[@TheRealFraston]

At least that video is an excellent laugh and Grouch has more than owned up to it. Alex Yard doubled down.

[@SomariStar_725]

If your video is so bad that Sebastian Wolf doesn't wanna touch it Then you should know that you've fucked up

[@treefroggy]

I know Toby in real life. I’ve known him since middle school. A lot of his stuff takes direct inspiration from things he likes. That is true for most art, not to mention the classic video game music we discuss and are inspired by. Earthbound is known for this. Undertale was not expected to become as huge as it did. That was scary not only to him but his friends as well. I enjoy pointing out similarities and possible inspirations in a lot of the tunes as well. I like your channel but judgements of character on my homie is the sort of thing Undertale becoming a runaway success has wrought. Yeah, it was meant to be a game for his friends to enjoy. Also Brandish is one of my favorite games of all time because he showed it to me in middle school. “Malicious theft” sounds like harsh sensationalism.

[@treefroggy]

I’m not really saying much. Adding some context. I’m not a huge Undertale fan. Haven’t played Deltarune yet. I was however pleasantly surprised that one of my piers made something that was good. Anyways Toby started making video game music at least by middle school. He was in marching band and later went to college for music (in Boston btw). I just don’t think Undertale was meant to be more than a fun project.

[@Dorked]

Yeah, like, people forget that Toby was overwhelmed by UT's runaway success and the size of the fandom. I think his lack of public engagement with the wider fandom space is a really good move for his professional career and his mental health. I'm a fairly small creator and even I feel the pressure from my own audience's behaviors and the stuff they do on my behalf, so I can't imagine how stressful it is as the creator of a game that had a lasting, pop cultural impact. Wishing him the best, and I hope that people are kind to you for speaking out for a friend.

[@treefroggy]

You do make some points, I did watch the whole thing, but I’m still making the same counterpoints. My homie isn’t perfect but I still think you should cut him some slack.

[@treefroggy]

So again I guess I don’t have much to say because you make valid points. I’m not exactly offended except by some of the harsher remarks. Would be interested in a reply from homie but if he doesn’t wanna deal with it I wouldn’t blame him. Fame is scary.

[@treefroggy]

@@Dorked eh I don’t wanna white knight either. Not doing this for any reason other than to add context and I enjoy discussion without saying much one way or the other.

[@Zsaber64]

On that same bull from a couple years ago when you wouldn't shut up about that other Sonic creator who asked you to stop talking about them. Anticipating the walk back on this one as well. True unsubscribe moment. Peace, brother.

[@panwasacz2733]

Who was that ?

[@Zsaber64]

@@panwasacz2733 I genuinely don't remember. It was kinda why I stopped paying attention to the channel even though I was still subscribed. Saw the latest community post and wondered what the heck was going on, then said "here we go again... 🙄". He made like a two hour video about how even though this Sonic personality (whoever it was, I'm very much not part of the fandom) asked Alex not to talk about him, he had the right to do so. It was the most pedantic thing I've ever witnessed, maybe until now.

[@Zsaber64]

I think the creator in question was The Geek Critique. Not familiar with them, but I think that's it.

[@CaerwynHeart]

i feel like something to note is that there are no credits for writing or programming either in the game. there doesn't seem to be confusion over whether toby wrote undertale even though he is not explicitly credited with writing. i think most people understand that to be included when the credits state "undertale by toby fox". and maybe you don't like this way of doing the credits or you think that writing and programming fall under that "by toby fox" whereas music credits should be listed separately, but i feel like maybe you can at least see how someone could use that credit of "undertale by toby fox" to encompass writing, programming, composing and maybe other things as well? that's my best guess regarding how the credits are listed in game :)

[@StarryGazer-do6oh]

at around the 33 minute mark, you labeled the entirety of Radiohead's discography as "original", despite the fact that the song Creep was successfully sued for copyright infringement. This glaring flaw detracts from your video because it demonstrates carelessness in the research you pride yourself on.

[@AlinaAniretake]

Glad to know, that when if you were a KZbin Copyright system - I would be fucked, as a composer) Like - vi vii i - Really? This cadence is so common in every genre, that you even gave it a name!

[@reneepineau631]

Stating that "anyone watching this has more than enough information to come to a verdict" while simultaneously claiming not to be making any accusations is a weird vibe

[@Yipper64]

Yeah this has to be the most unexpected video to be in my notifications feed today. Like, its obviously an accusation, why else would you make the comparison at all? but the guy who made is is backpedaling now, saying its not. Again, why bring it up if youre not making an accusation? It would be an entirely different video if he was saying "hey look at these similarities, here are the decisions that Toby likely started with, which is why the structure of these two tracks is so similar, this is because of such and such needing to happen in order to the music to work" idk something like that. Explaining the best faith interpretation of why the coincidence would happen rather than just pointing out and saying "come to your own conclusions" I feel there could be a lot to learn from music theory, and general convention here, but instead its practically discouraging taking inspiration from other things.

[@TheAuthorStudios]

well, this is the same guy that said in a video 'if you play the game this specific way, there's nothing wrong with that, but you are playing in the wrong way and therefore your opnions on it cannot be taken seriously because you're playing it in te easy way, not that there's anything wrong with that of course' and that after someone made a video response to him critifizing the sonic CD US soundtrack in bad faith made sure to include a disclaimer in the next sonic CD video where he explains in detail each joke he made at the US ost expanse in a very 'it seems you didn't understand the joke and tought it was a personal attack, let me please explain why that is not the case' tone So yeah. dude has some passive agressive tendencies.

[@mimszanadunstedt441]

And around 5:00 They set themselves up as an in-grouper to emotionally manipulate the audience.

[@hp8167]

Yeah this video is one of the stranger ones to pop up in my feed today. I just don't understand what he wants from this video. Under ShayyTV's comment he wrote: "I definitely wasn’t taking shots at Toby for being self taught. I was actually giving him huge benefit of the doubt, since the fact that he taught himself in a vaccum would shed a lot of light on his choices. As for the negative tone of the video, it was partly the catharsis of processing this super complex situation. If you don’t agree with my music theory findings that’s one thing, but discovering these things in the music was a truly horrible realization, and floating the topic open mindedly to my subscribers led to agressive attacks that questioned my integrity and motives. So I decided, “Toby’s choices led to today, and I’m under no obligation to go through this experience alone and in silence,” so I decided to bring the full depth of my heart for what is, to be fair, labeled as a personal response." The vibe of the video is some kind of accusation of plagiarism but he walks it back. And at that point...why make the video at all? I get the vibe that he felt some, for lack of better terms, righteous calling or duty to make an almost 40 minute long video on this and from what I've seen in the comments this is somewhat common for his channel whenever he makes content on music. So I just wonder why go through all the effort to passive aggressively stir everyone up?

[@b_delta9725]

@@hp8167 he's nasty overall, there was this video he made some time ago about undyne's theme where he adds an extra note, just for his point to land

[@POSTELVIS]

I was debating on if I should comment on this, cause on one hand I think while you certainly know your music theory, I think the video does a lot of circumstantial conjecture on what exactly constitutes a plagiarized melody. I don't particularly like Undertale, and I don't think Toby Fox is some genius composer, but as someone who holds a masters degree in music, I think this video is just wrong. your claim is basically that the undyne melody while not note for note, does contain similar contour, and the evidence presented here is pretty solid, after all the intervals between notes are pretty much the same, as you've stated in the video - and honestly I could get behind this if both the rhythmic and the harmonic context of the song supported this contour in its entirety, but I don't think they do. The fact that you even have to bring up that time signature, key signature, melodic note specifics and rhythmic variations as reasons why they "don't debunk" your contour theory presents a glaring contradiction - which is that all of these elements are contextual evidence that directly does not support your contour thesis - which is why you discredit them so early on in the video - to say that key signature, time signature, harmonic context or specific melodic notes do not debunk your contour thesis is frankly untrue, they absolutely do because these elements are not separate when listening to the song in it's entirety. It's only after you've basically stripped the entire song of it's context that your contour thesis holds any weight. In the structures section, I think this is stronger evidence for the Skyfires song being an inspiration for undynes theme, espeically the 1 semitone step up after the main theme is finished, and the turnaround being repeated and having variation thrown in with that repeat - I think the only problem with this section is that there is only so much variation that can happen structurally in a composition. especially if the evidence presented is with such broad strokes - technically speaking, those adding of the two measures does in fact offer a structural change (even though you say that it's irrelevant) because you could argue that this turnaround section is an entirely new theme instead of a turnaround because it's presented as four measures instead of a two measure turnaround - if examined this way the undyne theme contains two themes, while the Skyfire song only contains one theme - and the structure can be considered different. It's not the strongest rebuttal, but I think this also highlights my problems with music theory in general, because you also act as if this examination of the music is the only authoritative examination of the song - what about a Schenkerian analysis of both of these songs? what about a Transformational theory analysis of both of these songs, will these analysis also support this same conclusion? my guess is no. tl;dr - I don't think similar contour is enough to say this is plagiarized, similar structure doesn't mean plagiarized either.

[@POSTELVIS]

also on a side note - I really really hate the metaphor and equivalence of "Key signature is like color hue on a painting" - listen to Bach's inventions and well tempered clavier and tell me that it's a fitting metaphor

[@AlexYardZone]

Thanks for your thought process. I'd point out first and foremost that the video never used the word plagiarism - there are many potential routes on how Skyfire's composition choices ended up in Spear's, which would be irresponsible to speculate on. With that said... I agree with the idea that similar contour isn't enough to question whether it's an original composition. But it's stringing them all together in the same sequence that's the cause for questions. Like, as a hypothetical, when someone asks me if something is a rip off of a Beatles song, or there's concerns over whether it's original, one thing I'm doing while listening is to ask, "how long is this song riding the beatles' bus?" And with each passing measure you're asking yourself, when is this song gonna stop riding the bus? It's pushing it too far. If you get to 4 or 8 measures, you got yourself a concern. so how'm I supposed to react when 10 second later, the song hops *back on* the beatles' bus, but it's a totally separate aspect, not just replicating the content overlap from the beginning - a totally separate similarity. With Spear, you have such a wide variety of the types of overlaps, that the total sum represents a unique combination (factoring in melody, versus key, versus duration, versus stacatto emphasis, versus trimming notes, versus a specific sequence of chords, etc.) Putting your Bach example under scrutiny, the precedent it would set is that someone could open a "Learn Composing Quick" academy and advise students to take someone else's composition, play it in a different key on a Bach-era-style-tuning instrument that has emergent variations across keys (due to the imperfections of that era's best attempt to codify the 7 modes of major). The teacher at this academy would also be incentivized to invent their own slightly different instrument which works the same except those emergent qualities across different keys are represented. As a personal aside, I myself find it disappointing and unfortunate that those classical composers put such a heavy emphasis on the perceived inherent quality of individual keys, reading into emergent arbitrary incidental details and using that as the basis to construct a narrative. (I want this section to have a romantic vibe, so I'll move heaven and earth to modulate to (a certain major key). It's a beautiful tragedy in a way. Like, I can't hold it against those composers per se, because they were using the best information available to them at the time. What I do find disappointing and concerning is for people in 2024 to say that C is the happiest key or D minor is the ideal key for a stern, serious piece. That's vestigial snake oil.

[@POSTELVIS]

@@AlexYardZone thanks for the response - Like I said, the structural evidence you lay out is more proof than the contour evidence - it's more than a coincidence that Toby Fox has a step up after the main theme, or that there's a turnaround being repeated etc... it wouldn't be a stretch to say that Toby is familiar with SkyFire, that band seems right up his alley. I have my own thoughts on the idea of "originality" which you could definitely say that Spear is derivative. but I think there's a both a semantical argument, and theoretical argument that could argued for what counts as "original" and I think that contour or structure isn't strong enough to disqualify that, even if we disagree on that point. I think that melodic plagiarism is really the only thing that can disqualify a composition from being "original" and even then I'd still have some things to say in regards of pastiches or sampling. this also goes for the Bach scrutiny as well - while I also don't believe that keys have an inherent representation of tone or symbology - I would say that if we were to fully demystify ourselves here - different keys (in our well temprament) still represent a material difference in frequency, - can we really say the 440hz pitch is the same as a 329.6Hz? sure we don't have to abide by these pitches having any impact on compositions, but to say they aren't different I think isn't necessarily true either. I also thank you that you took the time for a thoughtful response

[@biggcheese012]

@@AlexYardZone”The video never says the word plagiarism.” It doesn’t have to. You are clearly implying he plagiarized and you are now hiding behind “I’m just asking questions, draw your own conclusions.” The same excuse everyone uses when they get rightfully called out for spouting off nonsense. Take a few days off the internet and try some self-reflection my dude.

[@biggcheese012]

@@AlexYardZoneIt’s like going to the bank with a loaded gun and then being surprised and upset that the cops showed up. “I never SAID I was here to rob the bank. I just showed up wearing a ski mask and demanding money. Draw your own conclusion.” Absolute mental gymnastics here.

[@tommy_pedrini]

I’m a professional game composer with 15 years of experience, I have two music degrees, and I teach music composition at a university. I don’t have any horse in the race and no great stake in defending the Undertale soundtrack from its detractors. I also don’t put a lot of stock in my credentials except in that they qualify me to leave this, my second KZbin comment ever, asserting that this video is bad-faith pseudomusicology that in no way backs up its primary thesis and fundamentally misunderstands composition as a craft and the creative process in general. None of your pretend music theory proves anything close to the alleged theft being described. The riffs are different. The melodies are fundamentally different; the repetition of melodic tones, intervals between each note, and even the meter are different. They are objectively different songs. No, “similar melodic contours” does not in fact denote plagiarism. A melody having a similar shape to another melody is literally a foundational element present throughout the entirety of music history. Everything about this video is beyond embarrassing and you should delete it and perhaps your entire channel. This is such strange and poisonous energy to put out in the world.

[@WoodSimon]

Completely agreed, Tommy. Upon finishing the entire video, I REALLY think this music theorist ended up splitting hairs--pretty toxic for the music composition community. I feel as though ultimately, this video will make composers more self-conscious about their compositional decisions further.

[@matheuspinheiro4796]

Excuse me, do you think there is a possibility that Touhou (One of the many sources of inspiration for Undertale) could have been inspired by the Yellow Magic Orchestra in some of it's songs like Strange Oriental Discourse?

[@AlexYardZone]

Condescension like yours is a big reason this video needed to be made, with your comment further confirmation. Asking me to delete my channel speaks volumes, you're intimidated by the presence of this discussion. Asking to stop is providing further incentive to making additional videos on this topic's domain. If you'd like to persuade me, engage on the ideas solely - asking me to stop confirms that this video is on to something. Ideas wise, each of the melodic and meter aspects were debunked individually - the riff of one measure in length is not a problem. I would never disagree that one measure overlaps such as the riff are bound to happen and a naturally occurring phenomenon in music creation. There's a nearly infinite number of ways someone could utilize such a riff. But having it three times in a row, break with a turnaround, then repeat the whole thing...now we're looking about eight measures of overlap, which is just a warmup of the overlap in Spear. That's excessive and we'd hope it see it stop there, but it doesn't, so I can't look away. Regarding your music credentials, all of the musicians listed in the Red Pan category were experienced musicians/composers, so naturally there's a lot of different philosophies floating around and part of the reason I made the video was for people to at least explain where they're coming from, as you have. Based on that, I wouldn't recommend someone learn composition under your instruction, just as you wouldn't recommend someone watch the videos on my channel. We've both established where we stand and are poised to move on.

[@Zosso-1618]

@@AlexYardZoneWhat kind of discussion are you hoping to facilitate by “Anyone watching this has more than enough information to arrive at a verdict”?

[@thegarlicbread5683]

@@AlexYardZone "asking me to stop confirms that this video is on to something" This is bully logic. You initiate a discussion by arguing in bad faith, then when you get challenged (because people are clearly disagreeing and calling your attacks out as being, again, in bad faith) you retaliate by pretending you're the one who's being attacked first.

[@Shift17]

whilst "Spear of Justice" and "By God Forsaken" share similar musical dna, that dna is insanely common. for example, both songs generally stay on the one (or a chord standing with the one) until a VI - VII turnaround back to the one. just because you can nitpick several similarities doesnt mean the songs are copies of one another. even if you believe such, as an issue i face, i get a song stuck in my head and end up making something that vaguely resembles it. I have been a fan of Alex Yard for a while, so its crazy to see him act so accusative and condescending.

[@luccaassis2148]

He is not accusing anyone, he didn't say it was intentionally done or in bad faith/ in a lazy way

[@johnbonhamsinger]

​@@luccaassis2148No he just heavily implied it!

[@Shift17]

@@luccaassis2148 may have not outright said it, but reading between the lines (like the majority of us did) heavily implied he was.

[@autisticTreadmilleater]

besides all the logic previously presented in these comments which i really reccomend reading instead of skimming over and losing your shit, here's something: *why would he plagarise this random song?*

[@redomega]

"progressive nerdy indie game dev steals obscure russian metal song"

[@mikubrot]

like if he was plagirising you'd expect it to be from a ZUN or mother series song but no

[@WavePrism]

exclusively favoriting replies making fun of undertale fans and boiling the entire issue down to "lol they're just mad you criticized their untouchable masterpiece!" doesn't help me not see what you're doing as engaging with an influential piece of media in bad faith for the sake of wanting to stoke a flame of some kind. most of the comments are just pointing out your weirdly condescending tone towards Toby as a creator/person and the discrepancy with using the Materia Collective situation as some evidence that he'd plagiarized some of the music in the game. i don't agree with any harassment you're receiving, but this is just insanely petty.

[@AlexYardZone]

I gotta keep myself sane through all this - I do find catharsis in having an objective review of music concepts, disproving any bias by holding Sonic and Mario accountable in the same breath - so despite all this, when I see people throw a fit in the comments, it's because they're really bothered someone has a different opinion than them and they think the way to balance the checkbook is to tantrum. The involuntary laughter this prompts in me provides relief. This video wasn't made to start a crusade or movement - it was just to put bring the situation to your awareness for anyone to make of it what they will. So yeah, hearting a comment like that is taking assurance in the fact that the toxic faces people have shown are further indication that this video is on to something. With the great number of folks expressing their solidarity and gratitude for this video, it's easy to put the condescending backlash in perspective.

[@somescrub885]

​@@AlexYardZoneThis weird smug overconfidence you have is completely unearned (and extremely embarrassing.)

[@TheRealFraston]

@@AlexYardZone”Great number”? Your saving grace from this embarrassment is that the vast quantity of dislikes are poisoning any chance of this reaching anyone but a subset of your subscribers. I do not feel your channel proper should be attacked.

[@cellolord4304]

@@AlexYardZone Alex, please, for the love of all that's holy, get down off your high horse and look at how people like me or Shayy or any other are reacting to your video and think about it Your video isn't making people throw a tantrum because you dared to stain a masterpiece, people are (very rightfully) pointing out how many of your arguments are flawed, how the tone across your video comes across as condescending and unflattering to yourself, and just how much of a conspiracy you're webbing over something that is just a coincidence I don't consider Undertale a complete masterpiece, it has flaws, but saying stuff like "the credits on the official soundtrack should be considered secondary sources" (??) to immediately put into question if Toby Fox created the whole soundtrack by himself (he didn't, Stephanie is and has always been credited for playing the live guitar on Undertale in every single release, and the crediting snafu from the vinyl and CD releases has already been explained in comments; ignoring the credits of official releases is extremely weird in general if you want to explain music plagiarism in general, since you would think it could be used as a way to show how happy plagiarist are to credit everyone but the original song makers) and then comparing SoJ to a Swedish prog metal band from 2000s (which there is a not-to-nill chance Toby might have listened, but nothing about his music inspirations lead me to believe he would have) to try and find some kind of plagiarism accusation to throw at Toby Fox is, quite frankly, just nonsense and makes you come off like you have a vendetta against Toby because a friend told you that a song sounds vaguely like another I've also already explained in the pinned comment why adding in Shayy's name to this video is just a shitty move in general, as well as Shayy themselves Alex, just please stop acting like every mount of criticism is people throwing a tantrum. If you have any amount of self-awareness, which I know you have somewhere, then please take down the pinned comment, take a break from the internet and reflect on this whole mess. Please.

[@WavePrism]

​​@@AlexYardZone UNDERTALE has received copious amounts of criticism over the years, even from its own fans. this isn't people "throwing a tantrum over a different opinion" so much as it is them pointing out that your tone throughout the video comes across as bad faith and that the Materia Collective scenario doesn't work for this particular situation. some of them have said that they don't even like UNDERTALE (Post Elvis comes to mind), so this isn't a case of "the fanboys are upset! sucks to be them!" i appreciate that you took the time to even leave a response, but the way you're responding in general rubs me the wrong way. especially since people are providing their own sources of Toby properly leaving credit for UNDERTALE's soundtrack, including tracks he didn't compose either himself at all or solely himself, and you're just brushing all of that aside for whatever reason. perhaps there's something im missing here, but i don't get this behavior at all.

[@thebreakfastmenu]

It's a different key, it's a different melody, it's a different tempo, it's a different time signature. End of argument.

[@FunkMcLovin]

This could have been such a cool video. Taken from the angle of "hey isn't it insteresting that these songs are so similar" it would have been a fun and informative ride.

[@thebreakfastmenu]

@@FunkMcLovin right? Like “here is an example of how you can use influence in music to create your own unique version without even using the same key, melody, etc” but instead is a long video about how it FEELS too close.

[@mr.j3rs3y]

@@thebreakfastmenu That would have made a really fun video!

[@goldendarius]

This video is the definition of the concept of "fun police". You sound so corporal about this, and forget that Toby is a self-taught musician who worked on fangames and indie games. As someone in his same field, doing musical references and referencing motifs from other songs is one of the most normalized and common things EVER. Have you completely forgot that music is an art? It's not just a commercial slop for corporations to sell and make money for, its a form of expression. If you like a song, you can express it by referencing a motif from it in a different song you're making, something artisrs have done since always. Artists that really liked a character or scenario that appeared in a different piece, so they decide to include it or reference it somewhere in their own painting as an homage. But this is assuming the note similarity is a coincidence. There's a limited amount of notes and keys, it will always be bond that some songs will end up sounding similar. This video is embarrassing and you should re-evalutate your research next time.

[@jazzparagus1718]

Uh oh! You’ve encountered the ship of theseus!

[@someoneelse1534]

what do you mean by this?

[@Michal-je1hx]

@@someoneelse1534 if you change enough in a song you can't say it's the same song as before

[@someoneelse1534]

@@Michal-je1hx the ship of theseus refers to replacing a 'ship's components bit by bit, effectively copying the whole ship. Maybe not the argument you're trying to make.

[@UT-Chara]

@@someoneelse1534 The arguement presented by the ship of thesus is roughly, "How much can you replace in a ship before it's an entirely new ship?" By a certain point, there will be no boards remaining from the original ship. Sure, the structure may be the same, but it's not comprised of the same parts that the original ship was. At what point does the ship become a different ship entirely? When 100% is replaced? 70%? 50%?

[@kindlyevilbgm]

@@UT-CharaIt’s not really applicable to a song though

[@jeffs1571]

This is gonna be a miss for me, dude. Love your other music theory videos but this video just wasn't it. After watching the whole video, it seems like you just happened to get snagged on a couple of odd stylistic choices on the album packaging and then used that as a basis to accuse somebody of theft for a couple of measures of one song. You then undermined your argument using the "Friends" theme example. In both cases they used the same intro, but then varied. By this logic, basically every single EDM track out there is plagiarizing every other EDM track out there because they all have a similar style of intro. Feels about as convincing as telling me that a car that has 4 wheels, 4 doors and 6 seats are all ripping off the Toyota Sienna, while in reality its just a common design of vehicle. This video was a mis-step. Edit: just listened to "By God Forsaken" and the rest of the track sounds nothing like "Spear of Justice".

[@AlexYardZone]

The point of the Friends theme was not to show how the Blue Spheres composition intro transitioned into the friends theme. It was to show that the Friends theme could be radically reinvented with a different feel but the composition is unchanged. And....as a bonus......the reason SiivaGunner chose these two songs to mash up, is because there is an incidental one-measure overlap that is well within the bound of there's only 12 notes.

[@SparkSJH1]

Alex Yard is gonna be Alex Foot, or perhaps Alex Inch after this one

[@MystycCheez]

He's half the man he used to be... He's Alex Cubit now

[@torino20]

Alex Graveyard

[@drasticdaniel4906]

And yet he tries to stretch an Alex Mile

[@headpenguin8758]

My largest concern with this video's proposition is that it raised the bar for creating music. I am no composer (at least not in the sense that this video uses the word), but I do like to mess around in software to create melodies that I find interesting. While lazy/unoriginal composition (which Spear of Justice seem to portray signs of) is not ideal, it is also important that we account for unskilled musical creators. There is no good reason, beyond tracking credit, to lock off creation of music solely to skilled composers "who are capable of respecting an original piece." This will only result in fewer people presenting their own musical ideas out of fear of accidental plagiarism. Music is unlike academic endeavors in that unoriginality can be subtle (to the untrained eye) and unlike rigourous disciplines where unoriginality is irrelevant, so both the value of the work of the original composers and the value of various untrained creators of music should be weighed. If I ever wanted to make a game and include my own music in it, I would lack sufficient understanding to ensure the music is as original as this video's metrics want. In my view, that would simply be bad. Everyone starts somewhere, and everyone ends somewhere. It is unreasonable to restrict presentation of music only to those with sufficient skills. Expect skilled composers to respect other composers, but don't expect of unskilled composers the same.

[@breen7771]

I honestly agree. Dropping a midi file for a song you like the vibe of and toying around with it to make one of your first video game battle themes is a nice way to start if you have little to no prior experience or familiarity with music theory. That being said, if you do something like that and then sell the game and don't credit your inspiration, it could read as plagiarism. In the event that it is an accidental thing, if a creator is later asked about if their game's song is based on the original/similar/potentially plagiarized work, it's a good idea for that creator to say something about it, even if it means admitting to an accidental slip up. These kinds of accidental things happen all the time to a lot of composers. The classic video from Daniel Thrasher "I accidentally wrote 'The Office' theme song" sums it up entirely. I think a lot of more seasoned composers will ask a second opinion of someone else to catch it if they accidentally just wrote a song that already exists. That sort of thing probably wasn't something Toby was worried about as a small, mostly solo, creator working on his little indie game. I agree with you in that I don't think up and coming creators should be held at the same expectation as more seasoned composers. My worry is now Toby is being hired as a composer for new and bigger games like Pokemon, so this retroactively causes a bit of a conflict, as part of his portfolio is potentially plagiarized, and he hasn't really spoken on the subject since then. If left unaddressed, people who are a lot less in-the-know about music could take an uninformed narrative that "Toby Fox plagiarized the Undertale soundtrack" and run with it for clicks, potentially damaging his career. For that reason, I personally appreciate how specific and deliberate Alex's criticism and approach to the video was taken.

[@headpenguin8758]

@breen7771 Yes. I think that retroactive crediting seems like a reasonable way to fix any unintentional plagiarism for inexperienced composers, and if a composer knows their inspirations/what they arranged, they are obligated to specify such. Toby Fox clearly has the skills necessary to avoid plagiarism (unless he is less skilled than his employment suggests), so he is obligated to. In that respect, I would like to see an appropriate response from him to address this case (again, we do not know yet what his process was to arrive at his music, only that it seems unoriginal)

[@TheAuthorStudios]

Being honest HIs 2nd channel has a video that straight up states that if you don't play soniic games a specific way that he thinks is the 'intended' way, yuor opnion on sonic the hedgehog games as a whole are all unvalid. I think Alex is a lot more pretentions and elitist than it might seen for the most part, and this is just a peek into it we don't get that often. I love this channel but i can't deny the dude is very prone to acting condensending to the prospect of a different opnion than his (see the Sonic CD US OST debacle for instance.)

[@StefanNoack]

There is actually a way around this: Actively steal from things in the public domain. You can even seem edjumacated when you cite classical themes 🤓 Actually the hopes are high for future composers. In 200 years or so, probably every melody imaginable will be in public domain anyways.

[@AlexYardZone]

No bar was raised in this video - it's just that there's a lot of misperceptions of how this domain has always worked, which is further muddled by the the internet-fanproject--self-taught-DIY approach that's adjacent to this discussion. Your logic on gatekeeping unskilled composers is misguided, if that were the case then some prospective lawyers are being gatekept because they can't pass the bar exam, or perhaps you'd object to the fact that no women are on the roster of all NBA basketball teams. If you don't have the confidence that your own work is original, don't put it on the market for a price, and don't expect the world to owe you that opportunity. If you think you're not equipped to compose original music, then delegate that to a music writer, or just do it yourself as a smaller scale personal hobby. No one is preventing you from making whatever music you want for your own purposes. If you want to sell it on the open market then the burden will only ever be on you to ensure it complies with basic expectations of original works. And there are people you can contact for help with going about this mindfully.

[@SomeUsernameSomeoneElseTookIt]

Hang on Alex…𝓘’𝓶 𝓰𝓮𝓽𝓽𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓪 𝓬𝓪𝓵𝓵….

[@angelnati8297]

GASTER??????

[@Jarack25]

RelaxAlax's video, which you brought up had a good point. "It's less copying and more the equivalent of the stickers you see on the back of mini-vans." How I interpreted that is "Using simple melodies and making melodies used to capture the same feeling as the songs that inspired the piece is not plagiarism, at most they're homages."

[@trondordoesstuff]

1) i don't think you can both say "The ball is in Toby's court here, he has to explain his connection to this obscure band" + insinuate that this practice cheapens the whole music industry, and claim "I never made any accusations of plagiarism" in response to comments explaining that it might not be... you can't really have it both ways. 2) As a fairly new composer myself, this video's conclusion scares me - because how am I meant to respect a history I do not have familiarity with? What if I'm just playing by ear with what sounds right and somewhere in the millions of recognizable songs ever released I've hit six rough-matches with a track I've never heard - have I done something wrong? If I got some level of following would I "deserve to have (my) fanbase" feel like I've betrayed some level of trust? Have I... "not composed" at all..?

[@AlexYardZone]

No putting words in my mouth here. I didn't say Toby "has" to do anything. It was a constructive suggestion, on what he would need to do to make it right with people including me and other fans that I've spoken with. This video is not talking "to" Toby (since that's not an option) but rather "about" Toby. If word gets back to Toby and he does or doesn't take action, that's irrelevant to this video's purpose. You just need to decide how you're going to deal with me speaking from my perspective. I'm just here setting the record straight to let folks know where things stand, since there was a lot of firey backlash an incomplete perception of these basic concepts discussed. As for your #2, the devil's in the details. If you accidentally make a song that turns out to be not an original, you'd be held accountable for it. What else is there to say? I can think of examples where co-composer credits were retro-actively added despite there being no malicious intent behind the song's construction.

[@Minefan200]

@@AlexYardZone You literally called this an investigation into plagiarism two months ago be honest

[@MalakaiDerg]

@@AlexYardZone "I didn't say he has to do anything, I only made a 30 min video full of snarky comments about how unoriginal and basically indistinguishable his non-composition is and also suggested at the end that he should speak openly about it otherwise he is being shady and hiding things on purpose. But I didn't imply anything by that!"

[@toasttitan3253]

@MalakaiDerg Bro is literally using Lily Orchard logic now, this is sad

[@SaotomeLuna]

It's unfortunate, really, to learn that someone who presents as an expert can be so unprofessionally wrong. Honestly your behavior surrounding this entire "investigation" calls into question your qualifications to speak on music theory in any capacity. Laymen can no longer trust a word you say. You have poisoned your own well.

[@ArtsyPuppy]

you are not hbomberguy

[@orokro_stuff]

That's a good thing. Fuck bread tube.

[@josephsmith5110]

Hbomberguy has a history of extreme online trolling, including dropping the N-bomb and calling for the eradication of black people as the opener for a livestream. Look up his Metokur days. As far as I can see, he has never apologized for this and even tries to downplay his involvement in these circles. He does all of this while taking down others that have done and said much milder things. Juxtaposing his moral grandstanding about PewDiePie with his documented behavior is very jarring.

[@ArtsyPuppy]

@@josephsmith5110uh huh? would you like to provide any evidence of those still being his beliefs today? because one little fact you forgot to mention is that the situation you’re speaking of was apparently 13 years ago given hbombs current actions, attitude, and behavior, it is very reasonable to explain that he simply grew up and matured in the near decade and a half since, and he doesn’t talk about it because it’s a regretful time in his life that he has since moved on from as he’s aged if he did say those things, yes, it is still fucked, but to me personally, holding him accountable for things he said 13 years ago when they clearly do not reflect the man he is now, as if they just happened, is misguided and slightly petty not to mention that from everything im reading, the claims are either insanely dubious or come from metokur himself, someone who STILL holds the same beliefs he did back then and is striking out against someone who actually grew and changed as a person unless you can provide anything substantial to your claims, and prove that hbomb still holds such belief today, then consider me unconvinced edit: also id be hardpressed to call what illuminaughti and james somerton did and are doing as “mild” :I

[@ArtsyPuppy]

not to mention the fact the people he’s “taking down” are doing immensely shitty things to this day illuminaughti is trying to ruin countless peoples lives, james somerton was exploiting lgbtq+ people for money, tommy tallarico basically attempted to wipe out history and place himself in it i wouldn’t call illuminaughti actively going out to ruin people’s entire lives as revenge and james somerton grifting and profiting off of people he supposedly “represented” as mild

[@josephsmith5110]

@@ArtsyPuppy I don't care about his beliefs back then or now. I just want it to be known that he is duplicitous and likely does not have any moral foundation. The trolling he was doing targeted very vulnerable people, and from the stories about them, I would estimate that many of them were probably mentally impaired to some degree. If you like going after weaker people or kicking people while they are down, that's one thing, but the way Hbomberguy conducts himself while purporting to be have compassion for certain groups, like when he announced that he would donate all revenue from his plagiarism video towards LGBTQ+ organizations to cater to his leftist audience-when in reality he is clearly a dirtbag leftist like Destiny or Nick Mullen-that is the thing that truly makes him unpalatable for me. And again, he now says that Metokur was something he was barely involved in, but Jim, who now goes by Mister Metokur, has provided ample evidence to the contrary. It is not random that most of his new videos are callouts. He is still a troll, only his targets and his format has changed. I don't particularly care about any of them and I do not watch their videos, but PewDiePie, JonTron, and Internet Historian are some of the people he went after for not aligning with his current stated politics and none of them has close to as much dirt on them as he does. He even had the gall to characterize Internet Historian's unlisting of old, edgier videos as "troll's remorse," which was exactly the term Mister Metokur had used years prior to describe former participants of Metokur that turned towards progressive politics after their departure.

[@SolMerse]

It seems weird to me to be like "Well I'm not going to speculate on this, there could be a lot of explanations for this" and then impose your own conclusion throughout the rest of the video. You make sure to avoid the heavy plagiarism accusation directly, but you certainly imply it when you say stuff like "If there's a percentage of viewers still insisting that this is definitely a coincidence...". You're putting your own thumb on the scale. Even if you claim to just be approaching the video as a pure discussion, it certainly doesn't look that way. Solid analysis of the songs, though.

[@TheAuthorStudios]

kinda arround the same level of passive agressiveness as when someone made a video critificing him for his clear disdain and bad faith analysis of the US sonic CD sountrack, in the very next sonic CD analysis video he wrote an entire comment justifying and explaining his jokes at the expense of the US ost in it.

[@IAmFromTheYear]

This video is a perfect example of how music theorists may be exceptional at writing and analysing music whilst being catastrophically terrible at coherently formulating and expressing their ideology via the written word. It's honestly impressive how somebody with such a comprehensive vocabulary can lack so much clarity.

[@oliveoiI]

you put why this video rubs me the wrong way so perfectly

[@cinnasauria]

I am 99% sure that "Original Soundtrack" generally indicates that the soundtrack contains the actual music found in the game, as opposed to an album that contains rerecordings, rearranges, covers, or additional songs. It's "Original" as in "unaltered," not as in "unique" or even "the original work of the composer." I just find that a really strange semantic point to lean on from the start.

[@Dark_Peace]

Yes and no. Maybe for games but for movies and shows, the in-show music is always slightly differently edited to match with the images. Source : personnal extensive analyses

[@ugogogo2438]

The only time I've seen someone reaching this far was when I played Marth in Smash Bros. Melee

[@drasticdaniel4906]

This guy must've found Link's hookshot to be reaching this far 😂

[@ColonThreeClef]

As a loyal viewer and a studying jazz composer who was inspired in part by YOUR analyses to pursue that line of study and fall in love with the theory of music, I feel sick. This argument of yours is made in bad faith and takes advantage of public ignorance of music theory in an attempt to pursue the proving of a nebulous case of plagiarism that you never fully commit to in order to save face. Saying "if you lack music theory fundamentals and are thrown off the scent by a different key, go ask someone with music theory experience" is a gross, manipulative statement. Your job is to make music theory as digestible as possible, and you're usually decently good at that! All this does is set up a smokescreen between yourself and criticism from your audience, because the primary audience of this channel are people without formal music theory experience! You present yourself as a fellow fan of the game, and say that we as a community don't deserve this. That Toby Fox has taken advantage of us. You heavily imply and skirt the line of accusing him of plagiarism but always stay away from an explicit statement in order to have an easy, cheap defense against criticism. Again, this just comes across as manipulative. In the case of this video, it is quite telling that you never play either Spear of Justice or By God Forsaken in their full original form, nor do you link them in the description. Instead you only ever show your own piano lead sheets of them. The two songs contain similar elements, but nothing that would suggest plagiarism, or if you prefer to avoid that word, "lack of compositional integrity". Beyond a similar opening riff contour (albeit one in a wildly different time signature) and certain similarities in structure, there is not much there. Additionally, we have more insight into Spear of Justice's creation than almost any other Undertale song, so why do you refuse to go into that? The original beta song is obviously an earlier version of Spear of Justice, and yet it is by all accounts nothing like By God Forsaken! The beta version also happens to contain a prototypical version of the riff you claim was plagiarized (er, "lack of compositional integrity"-ized?) and contains the same movement up by a half step, but in the case of the beta it is noticeably distinct from the similar riff in By God Forsaken and no one in their right mind would consider it a copy. Moreover, almost the entire rest of the song is different! You've focused in so much on a few specific similarities and ignored everything else. It comes across as cherry-picking, even if you don't think it is. This entire video is incredibly gross, manipulative, and disingenuous. You've exploited your audience and your position as a music theory educator. I am sad and incredibly disappointed in you, Mr. Alex Yard, and I will not be sticking around for more.

[@zxbryc]

Extremely well said. It's a mask off moment. This guy is directly causing harm to composers IN GENERAL by the toxic implication that they shouldn't receive credit for something if it sounds similar to something else, and that composers should be shamed for using references and inspiration in their creative process. Plagiarism has no grey area. If you found evidence: IT. MUST. BE. DAMNING. If Toby Fox downloaded an obscure MIDI file and just put new instruments to it, and AlexYard found the original MIDI file, there would be no need for "analysis", the evidence would speak for itself. And AlexYard is incapable of realizing his mistake and can only double down on his toxic elitism.

[@miniwhiffy3465]

if you completely change this song it sounds similar to the normal version of this song

[@MasteredRealm]

While I agree with all the similarities you pointed out, if the industry worked with your definition of composition vs arrangement, we'd be living in a literal copyright nightmare. For example, the Sonic 4 (EP1) Special stage borrows SO MUCH from Sonic 1's that you can literally overlay them and they perfectly harmonize while doing parallel motions. Masato Nakamura isn't credited nor he's fighting for co-composition credits. Dreams of an Absolution is also heavily inspired by Green Hill. Your extraordinary ability -- to see musical patterns, create them, and reinvent them in new settings -- is way ahead of the normal curve and tarnishes your judgment in this case. Court cases of plagiarism have both musicians and audio engineers submitting official documents with their views, but in the end, if the new "arrangement" doesn't remind the judge of the original song... it'll be labeled as a new composition. Your Baloon Park "arrangement" falls in that category IMO. And that's a good thing. It's a shame your tone is interfering with the content of the analysis, because it is quite solid. Hope you release a follow-up with more context.

[@Zsaber64]

One of the songs on the Undertale (O)ST is literally just Jingle Bells! Can't believe Toby is such a hack.

[@andrewsheiman8574]

Heartbreaking to see a twitter thread about 'some guy with a green filter on the game making weird accusations about undertale' and then seeing a screenshot and realizing it's a KZbinr I like

[@metaknight5199]

there's a twitter thread?

[@DobermanDolby]

You're mad cause a youtuber doesn't agree with you? Get real.

[@luccaassis2148]

People are misinterpretating heavily what he said, he is not accusing anyone of plagiarism since it would require being intentional (and it's not assumed in the video)

[@Minefan200]

@@luccaassis2148 He never accuses him of plagiarism directly, but he also can't say SoJ is an original work, so which is it

[@messss]

​@@DobermanDolby No, he's simply upset that a youtuber he likes is an egotistical idiot. Marked difference

[@TheStrangerUta]

I super don't wanna be that guy but the way you've been talking about this in the comments, repeatedly getting worked up over the lack of specification in credits (Ie. the soundtrack not being called an "original soundtrack" instead and composer credits in the game not being hyperspecific) and using those nitpicks to allege that it's some conspiracy and toby didn't actually do the work is kinda weird. I have no space speculating on your actual intentions here, but what you're presenting sounds insane. All composer work is credited in game, maybe not the way you'd like it to be I guess, and the super specific stuff is on the bandcamp or if you really want to get into it is buried in all the music licensing stuff. Editing because I saw a tweet where you talk about how the negative push back on this idea made you decide "now everyone's gonna know" and like...dude are you okay? Know what? In another tweet you say you aren't alleging plagiarism but that Toby needs to "make things right". You seem like a perfectly normal guy from your other content, I don't necessarily think you have bad intentions, but the situation you have found yourself in is genuinely blowing my mind

[@soli-ethd]

I kinda wish I could go back in time before I watched this video or saw your responses, because this is really rough to get through and your smug attitude to why people are criticizing it really hurt my respect for you. You keep saying you never called this plagarism, but if there was no plagarism what does Toby Fox have to apologize for? Copying music building blocks is not illegal or even necessarily undesired (and might not even be what's happening here, because this could be a coincidence, something you have yet to make a good-faith argument against); this is far from Gregory Coleman making one of the most recognizable and heavily sampled drum breaks in history and being rewarded with homelessness and debt. This is far from Vanilla Ice lifting the bass line of Under Pressure, or Ray Parker Jr. being fed I Want a New Drug endlessly and having the Ghostbusters filmmakers expect him to make something legally distinct that still fit their vision, or even Brad Buxer deciding that old song his old band never released would make good background music for an icy level in a Sonic game. This is a few basic structural similarities being used as a bludgeoning tool.

[@rbyouslowbro]

i have only experienced 25% of undertale..

[@Sally-g1q]

close enough. welcome back "snowdin town is a kirby song" discourse

[@SpaceshipMansions]

Can't wait for the 80 minute follow-up where you discuss whether Megalovania's famous riff is a rip-off of (2:42 to 2:45) in Never Let Go by Camel or not. Such a odd hill to die on.

[@pastelstephanie]

It does not take a degree in music theory to recognize that these two compositions, while vaguely similar sounding, are not at all the same piece. Using big words and complicated sentences is not good evidence of the compositions being the same. Acting as though you’ve got Toby in some kind of “gotcha!” position is childish at best. There are many points here that could be disproven with either research or critical thinking. Vague similarities in two compositions does NOT mean that the Undertale soundtrack is unoriginal or not composed by Toby Fox. It is very black and white thinking to believe so. I really enjoy your videos, but seeing this one is upsetting to me, and I’m unsure if I’ll keep watching after this.

[@biggcheese012]

Had he owned up to his mistakes, I probably would have kept watching him, but nah, I’m done now lol. Sick and tired of this elitist acting like he is God’s gift to music theory and we are all but simple plebeians.

[@someobscuremusicchannel]

@@biggcheese012 PREACH

[@Aksimine]

26:22 "tobs" he ain't your buddy.

[@Ringtail]

he keeps insisting on calling him "tobes" in all his videos and on twitter like they're besties, while also talking trash about how toby fox "had it coming" or whatever, it's really weird.

[@-.-y5105]

I don't know man, if By God Forsaken was an obscure video game or anime song, maybe there would have been a chance toby heard it. But we know that he doesn't listen to this genre of music, very few people in the USA heard Skyfire at all, it was mostly popular in skandinavia. What do you think is the actual chance that toby fox heard skyfire over a decade ago? One in a million, maybe? It's more likely that it's a coincidence(or both toby and skyfire were inspired from a song we don't know about yet, also unlikely)

[@TheAuxer]

It’s extremely strange to me how a channel, who’s entire purpose is music theory and music learning, could get so much wrong about both. It’s extremely disappointing and honestly out of character. I love undertale but I can ignore any bias if there is a serious claim on something such as plagiarism. But that’s like saying since gasters motif shares the same notes with a million songs, they’re all stealing from each other.

[@torino20]

I love how he added a quarter note in between measures in the Undyne theme that wasn't there in the original song. As someone with a diploma, shouldn't you proofread your transcriptions?

[@Moonswirly]

are we talking about in this video or 2 months ago during his stream?

[@torino20]

@@Moonswirly Here specifically, I do not watch his streams.

[@Moonswirly]

@@torino20 oh my god. do you have a timestamp? i'm not great at sheet music and the video is super boring so i'm not sure where to look

[@torino20]

​@@Moonswirly It's in the minute 18:02, if you look at the third blue square, you can notice an aditional quarter note in between the chord and the harmonic, right before the fourth square, which *are the measures in-between.*

[@Ringtail]

@@torino20 He also split the first quarter note into two joined eighth notes just to make it look more similar to the other song

[@whosthisjoke3059]

Yo I adore your videos. Your visual approach to teaching theory is unmatched, and as a classic sonic fan it makes it even better. But I’m just saying that this video is quite tone deaf. I know if you analyze this video like a robot, you won’t find any logical reason to say you are accusing him of plagiarism, but tone is a very important thing. Most people don’t think this way, and they’re gonna try and fill in the gaps that you are leaving, which is reasonable. As a music major I fully understand this video, but I think you could’ve approached this from a radically different angle. Your videos are usually “explorations”, and this one is toned like an exposé. Internet fandoms are ruthless regardless so you have to be careful with stuff like this. Love the stuff you do man, I hope this video doesn’t put you off KZbin cause I’m genuinely a big fan.

[@FreshTillDeath56]

I'm wondering if this was some kind of AI script test too, because this whole thing has the feeling like it was edited by a bot. There's barely any breaks between sentences and he's not even excited about what he's talking about, so it's hard to pay attention.

[@princessmiaxo]

@@FreshTillDeath56 God I hope this is AI.

[@Trashgarbo.]

​@@FreshTillDeath56the whole comment section feels ai generated so it would be fitting lmao

[@beepsalt]

I understand your want to be right, but inspiration is a thing, and as most people know now, things like the original Mario music was inspired by specific jazz music or children's tunes. writers are allowed to use similar sentences or structures of plots in their own stories. film makers use inspirations all the time. I guess the issue is that: even if you think the two songs are similar, Hanner did NOT compose the Undertale soundtrack. Toby wrote what's there, even if you think it's too close to something else. Toby Fox composed this specific music, even if you think it ripped something else off.

[@GoofballPaul]

On a spectrum of Original (or yellow, as you'd put it) and Not original (as red as ti can be) I'd rank Spear of Justice and some other examples you gave of "red" as follows: Spear of justice - SMW overworld - [thershold where I'd ask for answers from the creator] - Marble Zone I see the simmilarities between Spear of Justice and By God Forsaken, and I think they are inocuous. SMW overworld vs Green Green is in my opinion a "worse offender" and I still think it's fair for it to be made, published, and distributed comercially without having to give nay kind of aknowledgement to Green Green. With all 3 of these songs, I am in the position of being familiar with the videogame songs, but not with the older songs you link them to, because of this assymetry in familiarity I can generally hear the VG soundtrack in the older song but not the older song in the VG soundtrack, this is why I measure simmilarity by how much I hear the VG in the old tracks. With Music to watch women by, the simmilarity is so strong I identified MZ immediately, and I can even hear the older song in MZ now. It's super blatant. With Green Green, on first listen it did ring a bell, but I couldn't really hear SMW until the second time I heard the motif, and this was making a conscious effort looking for it. With By God Forsaken, it cost me to hear spear of justice in it a bit more than with Green Green, even after watchign your video breakign down the simmilarities, so if I consider SMW to be in the clear, naturally I consider SoJ to be even more so. Regardless of whether Toby has been inspired by By God Forsaken or not, I think it's okay for him to call SoJ an original composition. I deem SoJ as a whole, as a unit, original, even if specific parts of it aren't. I consider that something that is more than the sum of its parts can be considered original when some of its parts are not.

[@DarkGope]

a 454 likes to 948 dislike ratio is crazy

[@schwa4883]

Thanks for this lol. I couldn’t see the ratio, and I was wondering.

[@yoshihammerbro435]

How can u see the ratio?

[@biggcheese012]

@@yoshihammerbro435google youtube dislike viewer. First result should do it for you. I use it every time a stupid ass video like this comes out.

[@goldendarius]

​@@yoshihammerbro435 with chrone you can use plugins that make youtube show dislikes

[@AlinaAniretake]

now 1.3k dislikes)

[@Cpt.Stickerno0dle-iu3ok]

Considering the creator of the game is the composer of every track, it makes sense that there wouldn’t be a need to say “composed by Toby Fox” everywhere. In Deltarune chapter 2, certain songs like the attack of the killer queen are said to be worked on by Toby and Lena Raine, so when a track had multiple composers or a composer that isn’t Toby, than it is shown. Also Spear of Justice only sounds like that other song for a second, a kind of similarity with other music that could happen with any song over millenniums of songs existing.

[@Spin_Music]

This entire video is like saying Tee Lopes stole the Mcdonald's sting for Studiopolis Act 1

[@OhLookNoNumbers]

I wish this video would take a clear stance on whether or not it's an accusation of plagiarism. One minute you give Toby the benefit of the doubt and the next run full throttle with the assumption that he acted maliciously and intentionally. It reads as spineless ass covering behavior and hurts the cohesion of the point being made.

[@AlexYardZone]

Maybe you haven't watched the whole video yet, but it's made very clear that I will not make any accusations of plagiarism since I have nothing to base that on. If you're looking for that, it's irresponsible. The only thing reviewed in this video are the compositions themselves, an investigation that can be carried out without needing to connect any speculative dots about what may have led to the end product. Sunshine is the best disinfectant.

[@Minefan200]

​While you were doing your investigations two months ago, you literally made accusations of plagiarism with infographics that show your points, only to have someone else transcribe both songs and still have them sound different because you added a note that wasn't there.

[@mimszanadunstedt441]

'I have nothing to base that on, I will just make a video trying to manipulate the audience ( 5:00 ) and insist the song is unoriginal from multiple angles' If you have no reason to base it on, one can question the intent of your video.

[@meticulous_mot]

I got this video in my Google News feed. I enjoy Alex Yard videos. I enjoy Undertale. I do not feel so strongly about Undertale that I would go to bat arguing it is not guilty of something it most definitely is. This video is a dumpster fire. There's no sugarcoating that. What you have made is possibly one of the worst attempts at objectivity I have ever observed. A disingenuous debater will at least pretend to play both sides - you do that, tear down that mask, and then hold true to your position even more. I'm not going to make an essay breaking down your good points and your bad ones, but I am going to say that I watched 30 minutes of this without having seen the view-to-like ratio or having seen even a portion of a single comment. I also had not seen your previous theory video on the topic, nor the community response to it - nor the Twitter thread that has you in a den of lions. As many of the thousands of comments here have mentioned, the existence of this video is already a mistake in and of itself, as you have escalated a suspicion into a full-on accusation. As many mentioned and I myself immediately observed, you conflate a genuine concern and criticism of the media you discuss with a distaste for the backlash you have received. You made passive aggressive comments absent from any of your other videos, attacking the integrity of the person you claim to be giving a chance. I'm gonna be the one to say it: I don't know shit about music theory. I'm not a music student. I still don't even fully understand how different timings work. But I am a real person in the States behind this comment, and just as you are a real Bostonian, I have all the right to perceive you and say that this meltdown that is in the process of becoming an extended tantrum is downright embarrassing to witness. If I were any less objective about the contents of the video, or any less biased toward you as a creator, I'd have seen that 5 minutes in when you hoisted up what was, in hindsight, a tall vermillion banner displaying your ill intent. I wouldn't personally revisit this topic. If anything at all, I'd unlist this video, reframe the arguments, and go on to discuss others. Your tirade is only going to make you look much, much worse and hurt your argument further, and if serving justice and holding Toby accountable is something you truly care for, you'd do best to do some looking inward before casting stones outward.

[@Maxodex]

this video seems like the kind thing people like adam neely will be making fun of in a week or two.

[@jcoxeye9200]

Before I start, I'd like to say that I do indeed respect you, your opinion, your musical experience, and your musical analysis of these two pieces - I do not mean to come off as disrespectful here, and I apologize in advance if I do so. Preferably I'd be able to avoid this altogether, but to be honest, I'm simply not capable of that to the extent I'd like. Regardless, this comment may, and likely will, come off as very harsh - this is by design: I am not impressed with this video for several reasons, and am very disappointed. I do not have the musical experience necessary to say whether or not these two motifs are truly similar or not. However, for the sake of the argument (and given that, with my limited musical knowledge and trust of your own, I agree that the two motifs are uncannily similar), I will assume that these two quotes are indeed improbably similar. With that, I have several arguments against this video. Under Shayy's comment, I've already made the case that your conduct regarding the emotional aspects of the video is lacking. However, I'd like to present some more logical arguments: 1. In this video, you act as though there is a mystery to be solved regarding the credits of Undertale's soundtrack, and that Toby Fox is being oddly 'cagey' about compositional credits; you use this to insinuate that he isn't being entirely honest and transparent, while failing to properly lay out and consider all of the available evidence. As others have mentioned, Undertale's soundtrack is not un-credited - to argue this is to ignore the blatant implication that Toby Fox, at least according to himself, fully composed the soundtrack barring the occasional exceptions listed. There may indeed be legal or integrity issues with how the soundtrack was credited (I wouldn't know), but to argue that it is a moral failing is unfair, and I'd argue blatantly wrong. Speaking of occasional exceptions, you list certain discrepancies between releases, in order to further the point that Toby Fox is not being fully transparent. This is, in my opinion, a gross misrepresentation: as others have pointed out, these discrepancies are due to differences in the content of the releases, and are very clearly not for nefarious or careless reasons as you imply. 2. Nowhere in this video do you state why you believe Toby Fox has even heard of this (from what I can tell) obscure metal album - you state that it is too perfect of a quote to be coincidence, thereby implying that you believe Toby Fox intentionally replicated the motif, but never elaborate past that. If you can't argue that Toby Fox has heard the song in question, then in my opinion, you have failed to make the case that this was a replication (intentional or otherwise) as opposed to a coincidence. I very strongly believe in the principle of 'Assume positive intent.' Given that, I have to assume that Toby Fox has never heard Skyfire before, and that this (granted, improbably and uncannily similar) quote is a coincidence. From here, what I see is someone making a piece of music that is coincidentally similar to another, and being accused of plagiarism. Are we to expect every composer to be on constant lookout for any song that might resemble theirs? Is not doing so a violation of compositional integrity? Granted, I can't answer this question with confidence - I am not a composer. However, I would be shocked if the answer was yes. 3. This video is, in no uncertain terms, an accusation of plagiarism. Simply saying "I am not concretely accusing Toby Fox of plagiarism" does not nullify proceeding to spend what amounts to the entire latter half of the video running with the assumption of intentional plagiarism. I choose to believe this was not your intent, but the end result is a video that reads as an accusation of plagiarism, plain and simple. 4. You make no attempt to argue that the rest of Spear of Justice is an unoriginal composition - you (from what I can tell, thoroughly) make the argument that the opening riff of the song is unoriginal. From there, you label the song as an unoriginal composition, paying no mind to the rest of Spear of Justice. This may be pedantic, but the lack of acknowledgement of this irked me, and reads as an unfair presentation of the situation. 5. You make the argument that the soundtracks of Mother 2 (Earthbound) and Mother 3 quote and sample various pop songs, that Toby Fox took inspiration from this practice, and that fans of him and his game will take this as inspiration to do the same. To be blunt, I disagree that any of this is morally objectionable. The practice of quoting and sampling the motifs of other compositions is, despite your implications, indeed a common practice. For example, the third movement of Symphony No. 1 by Gustavo Mahler quotes the french nursery rhyme Frère Jacques, albeit in minor key. Sampling has been relatively common practice since the 1980s, and one of the most iconic drum breaks ever, the 'Amen break', has been sampled time, time, time, and time again. You may disagree - you may argue that this is indeed morally objectionable. To that, I have no response; to each their own. However, in my opinion, it seems that it is largely accepted by society at large.

[@Mercurial242393]

I really appreciate your points 2 and 4. I think if the pretense of questioned authorship was dropped altogether and more time was spent on comparing each section of Spear of Justice, then this video would have been a lot more informative and useful. As it stands, it feels like it's trying to take Toby to court for "harm" against Skyfire, but it's simply not anyone's place to do that except Skyfire (or whoever currently holds the rights to their song), regardless of how "right" or "wrong" they would be to do so.

[@jellywillreturn]

You put more consideration and effort into this critique than Alex did into this driveling mess of a video.

[@Zosso-1618]

I appreciate the Mahler reference. It would be absurd to refuse to call that march a new composition and to credit it to anyone except Mahler and Mahler alone. I myself was running thru any number of examples from the classical repertoire to compare to this, if indeed Toby Fox took music from Skyfire. I thought of the second movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique whose melody was very possibly borrowed from Mozart’s own Piano Sonata No. 14.

[@AlexYardZone]

Thanks for your thoughts and productive approach to this discussion.
 1. The fact is, the game itself really needs those credits. Otherwise it goes uncredited to people who actually play the game. 2. I don’t comment on that because it would be speculative, as there are many potential explanations behind the scenes (including it being accidental) It is unnecessary to assign any agency in order to determine whether a composition, with such macro and micro overlaps, is original or not. I kept my analysis only on the music itself to maintain that objectivity. 3.Covered by #2.
 4. Are you talking about thing like the section B Ruins motif portion? You make it seem like the title of the video is “Spear of Justice is 100% un original” but that’s putting words in the video’s mouth. Like with Fun Bazzar from Mother 3, it has the Beatles melody but if the rest of the song is new to Mother, it still lands in the Red Pan category. You can’t just decide to insert a guest appearance by John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
 5. I would only field a response to your comment on quoting and sampling once you factor in the aspect of public domain. You also don’t seem familiar with how sampling without clearance can land you in a bind.
 Anyways, you need not speak for society at large - only for yourself. I’ve spoken with numerous people who have evaluated this in a same manner as me and stand in solidarity that this discussion needed to happen.

[@jellywillreturn]

@@AlexYardZone Bro is calling his critics unread and uninformed after releasing this trainwreck of a video.

[@francyisanid1ot106]

Bro forgot what *INSPIRATION* means 💀

[@cloverstars_]

also not to hate here but i really do not see what toby fox being a private person, using text to speech, and not wanting to do interviews, has to do with the claims being substantiated here. it feels highly irrelevant and frankly rather unpleasant to make claims about the character of a man that you or i have not met nor do we know personally.

[@Zosso-1618]

@@cloverstars_ I agree. I have no idea what the suggestion that “Oh this guy in the interview could have been someone else posing as Toby Fox!” had to do with the “objective” analysis of the music he was purporting to be giving. He can say it’s in the section titled “Personal response” all he wants to cover his ass for outlandish speculations like he did in his response to Shayy’s comment, but speculation isn’t license to be stupid.

[@litliht6744]

Yeaahhh... That was a weird accusation. I understood what the author of the video was trying to say, but the accusation is still phantasmagoric. In fact, it would have been better to end the video with the plagiarism facts. And again. I agree with the author's arguments, but as I already said in the comment above, the video has a lot of weird, factually incorrect and sometimes unnecessary things - and I'm not talking about the negative tone towards Toby Fox - and these stupidities shade the main arguments and the main idea just fades away. I just have a feeling that the author of the video realized that he had found plagiarism and inconvenient information about Toby Fox's music, but at the same time he was a fan of him. And he was so afraid of angering the fans that he immediately took a defensive position.

[@FreshTillDeath56]

If anything, this video serves as a perfect example of why he WOULD maintain radio silence as to be free from endless scrutiny like this. I'm not in the man's corner or anything, but I completely understand wanting to separate yourself, the artist, as much as you can from your own artwork.

[@TheAuthorStudios]

I mean Same level as dude saying that if you play sonic for time attack rather than score attack your opnion on the game's quality is null and void, and trying to paint the US sonic CD soundtrack as some American Imperialism thing to justify his distate for it. Alex videos might be great but the dude does have an habit of making uip absolute nonsense to put himsefl on the right.

[@SomeRobloxDudeWasTaken]

@@TheAuthorStudiosi mean, i play sonic games for both time AND score, both factors matter idk why this guy thinks only one does

[@sobanoodles4286]

2:31 yeah im tempted to not even continue watching because 1. they don't even sound near close enough to be a problem, if you played those two riffs, they sound similar at most. and 2. that's not an uncommon thing in music to have a repeating motif for 3 measures that then ends with something completely different in the 4th one, and its not like it's something toby himself hasn't done before (take the Homestuck version of megalovania that has the same ABAC with c being completely different) but alas I did 15:35 this part is downright wrong and misleading you clearly show how spear is different not just at the end, but also going to a minor 4th in the second measure, and again, the thing you do point out is a very common thing, because using a 6th as a second to last chord helps make certain tones 17:56 if you need to be that specific, it does matter 21:12 a chord progression...... really? oh any just in general, yeah of course toby wouldn't make a big thing in the credits about him being the composer. first of all, it's his game, and he's made it clear he made the soundtrack not just in the neutral credits but in general, and second of all, when toby made the game, he had been making music for a long time, most of it being stylistically and sound wise being very similar to undertale (in fact, fallen down is from an album he composed for, and sans. and bonetrousle were songs written for a previous attempt at deltarune) also you did not need 15 minutes of you rambling on at the end, you could've just said "this is why I think this thing. I'm disappointed" and it would have done the same thing this video is a load of bullshit and you should've spent the time doing literally anything else

[@Yipper64]

im fairly clueless when it comes to a lot of music stuff, but even I know chord progressions arent really something you can "steal"

[@sobanoodles4286]

@@Yipper64 yeah

[@jasonjasso666]

I don’t know music theory and can barely tell you anything about music structure, but I know the difference between plagiarism and a fun coincidence when I hear it. I’ve made music before so I’m not completely clueless, I just don’t know all that technical stuff. All I know is that sometimes while hearing music I hear distinct themes from other media, so it’s not that strange of a concept for music to have very similar notes and or structure but not be explicitly copying someone else. EDIT: Ok, after hearing the songs back to back, yeah I don’t know what the issue is. It’s literally just the beginning few notes and that’s it, not even a complete recreation of the first bar or whatever a single rectangle on a music sheet is. Man composed 99% of the song either way, and that’s if, IF, he intentionally took inspiration from the song or knew of its existence. P.S - By the way, if anyone wants to hear the music I made over the years just search up MineDemon666 and Pentagram Music. Here’s a playlist I recently made of my personal favorites from oldest to newest kzbin.info/aero/PLlC28JgnCV1znZHSjBxskd4BAc-qOtF3A&si=OEY3kVWFZ9WNMb3a .

[@pentagrammusic3385]

I’m commenting with my Pentagram Music account just to show I’m not lying about the music being mine. Though I can’t access my MineDemon666 channel anymore because of 2 step security and not being able to log in with the same device asking for a gmail I don’t have access to anymore because of a factory reset, you can still see this channel being linked in the about section, so that verifies my ownership of that channel once upon a time too. After the unfortunate circumstances surrounding my first ever successful channel, I’ve lost motivation in continuing a career on KZbin, so that why I really only use my newest account now to once in a while upload any random thing to uphold a creative outlet.