The composer of one of the official anthems of Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympics is facing an avalanche of criticism over claims his song bears an uncanny similarity to Let it Go, the theme from Disney’s blockbuster animated film Frozen.
Zhao Zhao, an established songwriter who studied at China’s top music school and has worked with artists including Placido Domingo, is credited with composing The Ice and Snow Dance, one of 10 slushy motivational ballads chosen to represent the 2022 Beijing Olympics.
Other tracks include Never Give Up, Snow Dream and the chirpily named Welcome to the Great Wall for Skiing.
However, as Beijing celebrates being awarded the right to host the 2022 event, Zhao has found himself accused of plagiarism.
“Have you no shame?” read one of several hostile messages posted on the composer’s account on a Chinese microblogging site.
“Can you stop plagiarizing?” another wrote. “You have shamed China.”
Dozens of negative Chinese-language comments have also been posted under a YouTube video of the song in recent days.
“The plagiarism is very obvious,” one said. “This is an international sports event. If they can’t make their own music, they could at least hire some foreign producer to compose it.”
A second commenter said: “[China] has such a blatant plagiarism problem, and yet they still want to host the Olympics.”
One blogger created a mash-up of the two songs in an attempt at proving the likeness.
The furor over the alleged rip-off was such that even respected Chinese financial magazine Caijing waded into the debate.
“Some notes are almost the same as the opening line of Let it Go, and the only difference is the tempo,” Caijing quoted one critic as saying.
“China does not lack excellent music composers,” another frustrated commentator said. “Why do they need to plagiarize?”
Zhao Zhao, a pianist born in Changsha, Hunan Province, did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment.
After watching Sam Smith sing in Los Angeles earlier this year, he wrote on his Facebook page: “It’s a British Pop night! Sam Smith has nice voice and songs, sometimes I need to be touched in a such way.”
Others have leaped to Zhao’s defense, including another YouTube commenter who wrote: “[You can’t] accuse others of plagiarism without having any proof. There are strict criteria regarding plagiarism in music — it’s not plagiarism just because you say so.”
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