Band accuses Apple of ripping off their music video concept

There was a lot to see during yesterday's epic Apple event, and it all started with a very cool video called "Perspective." The 2-minute clip is a pretty standard event-opening video for Apple, stating some principles the company believes in and patting the user on the back for being part of it. It's shot using an age-old visual trick that exploits the viewer's limited two-dimensional perspective to line up words and phrases that exist only when viewed from that particular angle. It's a great video, but popular rock group OK Go didn't enjoy it, and they're now claiming that Apple ripped off the concept from their video for the song "The Writing's On The Wall."

This would normally be a pretty absurd accusation, given the fact that perspective tricks have been around almost as long as video itself, but the band's story as to how both videos came to be is worth a listen. Speaking to Businessweek, OK Go manager Andy Gershon claims that the band actually pitched the idea for the perspective-shifting video to Apple in the hopes that the two could collaborate. When Apple declined, the band went ahead and made the video anyway, and it went on to win an award for best visual effects after its debut this year.

Gershon says Apple then hired both the same production company and the same director that the band had used for the video, and tasked them with making the Perspective video that was shown off at yesterday's event.

The two videos, while somewhat similar, certainly couldn't be confused with one another, and where Apple's is almost entirely black-and-white text, OK Go's music video focuses much more on shapes, colors, and plenty of humor. Still, if Gershon's story holds water, it's a heck of a coincidence, if not a bit suspicious.