The singer is blasted for “borrowing” art work without crediting

Apr 29, 2014 17:57 GMT  ·  By
Justin Bieber stirrs controversy with his new cover art that he “borrowed” from the internet
   Justin Bieber stirrs controversy with his new cover art that he “borrowed” from the internet

Let's be honest, in today's dynamic music industry it's getting increasingly hard to come up with new concepts that haven't been done before by some act. Just look at Lady Gaga, she's going to die one of these days from trying too hard to be unique, because she's going to run out of ludicrous ideas.

However, Justin Bieber has still managed to raise eyebrows with his recent cover art for the latest song he put out there, called “We Were Born for This.” After the track was previewed, some people couldn't help but notice that the cover art looked eerily similar to one used by American band Paramore on their 2007 album “Riot.”

The visuals included a violent-looking font that seems to have been scribbled by hand, each letter facing a different direction, and each word a different color. It's the kind of thing that you'd expect to find on the back page on kids' school notebooks or on some back alley wall in the form of bad graffiti.

Paramore fans took notice and immediately launched a campaign to smear Bieber for being a shameless copycat and mooching off of the famous rock trio. The same fans started playing Sherlock Holmes and quickly found out that the Paramore LP in question also had a track called “Born for This.”

For many of them that was enough evidence that Justin Bieber was nothing more than a big cheat and thief, unable to come up with original material of his own. And they took their grievances online, in order for their voices to gain weight through larger numbers.

Of course, Beliebers hit back, defending their idol and turning the social media website Twitter into a virtual battleground. It later emerged that Bieber “borrowed” some fan art that had been floating around Tumblr since 2011, but he forgot to mention the source.

The battle continued with fury and added numbers until one of the members of Paramore, frontwoman Hayley Williams, came forward on Twitter to tell her fans that she was not bothered all that much about the plagiarism, and that they were occupying their time with more important things, such as practicing their songs.

While Justin's name can no longer appear in an article without being accompanied by the word “controversial,” he's certainly not the only musician out there to be blasted for plagiarizing some previous act.

Nicki Minaj also came under fire when she drew inspiration from a photo on the Internet for the cover of her album. It seems that musicians have no idea how the whole Internet thing works and foolishly believe that only they have access to some images and other media.