The importance of creativity, due diligence, and neutrality of data.

Today I learned that it is important to be able to create something ourselves and to exercise the due diligence of literature review. I also learn that the same data can be used differently depending on the perspectives of the people communicating the data.

The problem mentioned in the media this week is that one of the candidate pair of the Jakarta governor election is accused of copying a Jewish’ contemporary spiritual song.

After I did a literature review in the youtube, I found that there are at least six different dates signifying different songs with the same melody. This illustrates the importance of creativity. If we want to avoid trouble, the best is to create something ourselves and not to copy from other people’s works.

The second learning point is the due diligence. It is true that the candidate’s song (the sixth on the list) is copied based on the fourth song, the song theme of a party in the Indonesian general election in 2014. But both of that party and the current governor candidate’s team seemed to not having enough literature review on the song. They may only look at the first original song which does not contain the Jewish spiritual content without looking again on the other songs with the same melody. The one accused them may also choose to ignore or not do the due diligence to check that the candidate may not necessarily copy the Israeli song. For us, the lesson learned is check first both the original work and the other works who have referenced and copied them in some ways.

The third lesson is the neutrality of data. Data is a fact and is objective. But the key takeaways based on the data can be different depending on our interpretation. So be careful on reading something even if it is supported by data. Check what are the differences between the key takeways and the data together with other possible interpretations based on the same data.

For example, I can cut the data to show only the 4th to 6th song. In that case, it looks as if the candidate never copies the Israeli song, just because there is a second official release of that song as the 5th in the list (later than the 4th song used by an Indonesian party). On the other hand, I can also release only the 2nd data to make people believe that the candidate or the party copied from the 2nd song as if there is no 1st song. At the same time, opinion is also important. In this case, the musician created the 2nd and 5th song complained about the 6th song while the 1st song’s musician does not say anything.

So the one reading this article may also have different interpretations. Also, it is possible to revise the conclusion if someone found there is a data earlier than the one published as the 1st song. Here is the list for your references indicating the danger of using the same melody:

Youtube Date: 12 Sep 2012

Title: C’Est La Vie (English translation: It’s Life/Such is Life/That’s Life)

By: Khaled

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dWeeUIZFgA

Youtube Date: 27 Jan 2013

Title: Hashem Meleh (English translation: The Lord is King)

By: Gad Elbaz & Beni Elbaz

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9mxV2KXclE

English Translation of the Lyrics (14 May 2015): http://lyricstranslate.com/en/hashem-melech-%D7%94-%D7%9E%D7%9C%D7%9A-lord-king.html

Youtube Date: 2 Jun 2013, 11 Oct 2013

Title: Vivir mi la vida (English translation: Live My Life)

By: Marc Anthony