This particular controversy has been fascinating to many, because it involves creators from two different cultures. Motoki is an Asian-American creator, and Math Podcast is French. Both are very successful, but they seemingly have nothing to do with one another. They shouldn’t have anything to do with one another. But, in 2016, some fans discovered in the strangest way that they had more in common than anyone could’ve thought.
Over time, more and more people started to notice that Math’s videos were very similar to Motoki’s. A bit too similar even. In fact, they were the same. To the word, to the second, and sometimes, to the shot. People realized that Math had plagiarized every single one of Motoki’s videos by translating them to French and reshooting them the exact same way, giving Motoki no credit whatsoever and making his French audience believe that he was the creator behind it all. He would sometimes even steal shots from the original videos and seamlessly reedit them into his versions.
In February 2016, Motoki ended up speaking up about this, confirming that Math had never asked for his permission to remake his videos. Both American and French media took on the story, and condemned Math for his actions — he had built a highly successful career by stealing Motoki’s work, and he decided to take action. Naturally, Math’s career crashed before he could even say “oops”, and despite numerous apologies and attempts to reinvent his channel over the years, he never recovered from the scandal and has now completely vanished from YouTube.
