China doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to intellectual property. Big international companies spend lots of money fighting IP theft when smaller groups here in China happen to “borrow” IP rights. Which is why the current IKEA commercial in its spring public transport ad campaign seems a little strange.

Sound familiar? Yeah, pretty sure that’s the old NES Super Mario 3 song… you know, from World 1, Level 2, i.e. Overworld 2. It’s “creatively altered,” so it seems unlikely the company licensed the tune. You would think IKEA, a company promoting creative furniture and storage solutions, could at least commission some of their own music rather than ripping off the poor, unemployed plumber Mario. Koji Kondo would like his residuals check, please.

Mr. Smith is a consultant living in Beijing.

In case you’d forgotten what the original sounds like (off-key, but close enough):