Recently, The Pokemon Company did a relatively larger Pokemon Presents event where they announced several things, including the arrival of some free online games, updates to their mobile titles, and more info on their upcoming Gen 9 DLC. The Pokemon Scarlet and Violet DLC, called “The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero,” will come out in two parts, with the first entry releasing on September 13th. The trailer we got for the DLC was rather expansive and broke down the events we’ll participate in. But if you listened closely to the trailer, you might have heard something odd.
By that, we mean that instead of using the direct music from the game, The Pokemon Company instead seemed to have used a “fan cover” version of the Area Zero theme. The person who made the theme, ND Music, noted it on Twitter and showed the music he had covered:
As you can see, the big “scandal” over this is that The Pokemon Company didn’t credit ND Music for using his version of the theme. Plus, given that this was clearly a cover for a song they had within their servers, it’s odd that they would use it in the first place.
The result of this “theft” was many people going onto Twitter once they heard the truth and calling out the company for what they did:
Oh, and in case you’re curious about whether this claim is legitimate, ND Music made a video highlighting the similarities in the scores between what he did and what was in the trailer:
The other reason this matters is that companies like Nintendo, where Pokemon Scarlet and Violet can be found via the Switch, are notorious for people posting music without their permission, or posting various kinds of content without their consent, even if it’s not legally needed.
Yet here, we have a case of the shoe being on the other foot.
Whether The Pokemon Company admits what they did is up in the air, but many aren’t happy about this. ND Music is trying to take the high road, but he would at least like some credit for the music they used in the trailer.
This may seem like a “small thing” overall, but you have to remember that music can help make trailers shine and that new trailer will be viewed by millions, and that could be a lot of people coming to see what else ND Music has done.
