Staff WriterIbiza tech-house phenomenon and Beatport chart regular Mihalis Safras is under fire recently from pretty much everyone in the music industry, and now it’s our turn. The Greek ‘producer’ has boasted releases on huge labels such as Hot Creations and Relief in recent years, as well as being named Traxsource’s No.1 Tech-house DJ in 2015.
Accusations of plagiarism have now come to the attention of the music industry over the last few weeks, and it seems that it’s old news to some artists. Up and coming British artist took to social media to voice his anger on Monday last, stating that Mihalis Safras had ripped off an unreleased demo track of his.
“So it’s been 10 days since my first video post went public, regarding Mihalis Safras ripping off an unreleased demo track that I had sent him a few months back. Since then, 3 more artists (including German Brigante) came forward with similar cases against him and another 2 which will come forward eventually too. Apparently, Safras is using Material Series as a platform to get his hands on other producers’ work and is following a specific set of tactics to target his victims. Frequently asking for all parts from producers in order to remix their tracks but instead using their parts/ sounds for the benefit of his own productions. Once he does that, he then removes all original tracks (the ones he has stolen parts from) from all digital platforms in order to cover his tracks and avoid being detected.
The reason I am posting this video is because no apology whatsoever has been given yet to any of us victims and instead Safras’ camp is trying to find excuses for all cases while trying to harm our credibility and hurt our image. This attitude is unacceptable and no one appreciates it. Check out the video to witness a few of the cases so far.”
German Brigante has also called out Safras, claiming that the plagiarism stretches back over the last four years. Speaking to Change-Underground he explained exactly how Mihalis Safras actually went about ripping off his tracks.
“When I started releasing music, Material was one of my first labels. Every time that I released a track on his label, Mihalis always asked me for the stems. When I asked him what for he told me Beatport needed them. I was naive at that time and just wanted to release music so I made the mistake of trusting him.”
“There is no way what happened to me was unintentional. This happening many times now proves that there is absolutely no doubt. I have seen recently that he won the award of Ibiza best producer which doesn’t make any sense. Someone in his position should never do something like this to young talents.”
The grimmest part of the whole scenario is that the fact it seems to be swept under the rug, whereas when a similar situation emerged involving Hannah Wants ripping off Boddika’s ‘Mercy’ the internet absolutely erupted. I’d like to think that this is more to the fact that Mihalis Safras is less relevant than Hannah Wants, but the reality is that the music scene is more likely to through a female under the bus without question, which as been proved over and over again.
Other artists have reacted on Twitter with some good ol’ internet humour.
My new press shot. It’s actually just a picture of Mihalis Safras with a 909 over it. But if he can do it with others’ tunes….. pic.twitter.com/lclt9fz0is
— Bleaching Agent (@BleachingAgent) November 8, 2017
i mean, sampling/using pre-fabricated loops can be all part of the game, but this is some next level jacking stuff?
— Benny Rodrigues (@bennyrodrigues) November 8, 2017
Feature Image: Mihalis Safras