Judge: Tiësto not guilty of plagiarism

Way back in 2003, the starting DJ Michiel De Jong sent a demo, entitled “Swiwal”, to Black Hole Recordings. The label, that signed DJs of world renown like Tiësto, sent a letter back stating not to be interested at this time.

Four years later, in 2007, Tiësto released a track that sounded awfully familiar to De Jong. He took the matter to the court and charged Tiësto with plagiarsm. The judge cleared Tiësto of the charges.

In the song, Elements of Life, sixteen bars are similar to De Jong’s demo. The judge ruled, however, that this wasn’t enough proof for plagiarism.

As we always like make our own judgment, we looked for the two tracks. Elements of Life was found without any trouble, but we couldn’t find Swiwal. If anyone has a recording of that track (that may be published with permission of the artist), we would like to hear from you!

Source: pp2g (in Dutch)