I find myself torn between the legitimacy of the concern over illegal downloading of MP3's and the right for all to use and enjoy music. Innovators or Pirates, cannot be held mutually exclusive.
The main feature of a 'Mash-up' is that it mixes two or more songs (usually copy-wright protected sound recordings) together without the owners opinion (Potter, W., 2010). In terms of the law this is Piracy, but it is here that the ever present Techno-legal time gap seems to emerge again. MP3's changed the face of the Music Industry (Martin et al., 2010) and since then the law has been playing 'catch up' per se.
In my experience, I have found that most 'Mash-ups', remixes (the list goes on) that I have encountered have given much credit to the original Artist. The Mash-up version will have the original song name or artist in the title and the terms versus or ft. are frequently used.
The Mash-up 'Call me Greyhound' is an example of this. The name itself contains a mix of the two original songs 'Call me Maybe' and 'Greyhound' and the title of the Youtube clip contains both original artists names - it is noteworthy that the page also contains a link to purchase the original song on iTunes.
Wellet Potter (2012) states that "often the sole motivation for the creation of a music mash-up is a creative and artistic one, as opposed to economic incentive" and I thoroughly agree with this sentiment. Most creative artists do what they do because they enjoy it and the people who listen to the music, myself included, enjoy it. They are innovators in their area, and they take what Music they enjoy and make it, what some would say, even better.
While Piracy is clearly an issue within the Music Industry, I don't believe that Mash-up artists deserve the title of Pirates. How to control the issue legally, I do not know, I guess that is for "The Man' to eventually decide, until then, I will continue to enjoy the abundance of remixed music that is available to me.
References
Martin, B., Moore, C. and Salter, C. (2010). Sharing music files: tactics of a challenge to the industry, First Monday, 15, (12). Retrieved from http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2986/2680
Potter, W. (2012), Music Mash-ups: The current Australian Copyright implications, Moral rights and Fair dealing in the Remix era, Deakin Law Review, 17 (2). 349-384. Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=e7c12aff-c83a-4e0e-b914-f5fb544458c9%40sessionmgr11&vid=2&hid=7
I also find this topic difficult to answer as I am as guilt as anyone in downloading music, tv shows and movies, and it's all the more hypercritical of me because I'm a DJ and musician, having created my own songs and made them available for download.
ReplyDeleteI am all for artists sampling another artists song, providing that they name the artist and give them credit for their original work. Once again, I am all for DJ's remixing another artist' song, providing that the original artist receives credit and financial royalties if the remix becomes a big hit.
I also actually think that mash-up artists like Girl Talk are extremely talented because, although not using original music, you need to have a great talent to make a good mash-up mix.