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Mashed-Up Music
Posted by
timothy
on Sat May 11, 2002 11:28 AM
from the when-is-a-derivative-work dept.
from the when-is-a-derivative-work dept.
An unnamed reader submits: "The New York Times is running this article (also available here) about "mash-ups:" songs created by digitally synchronizing instrumental tracks with vocal tracks from two (or more) existing songs. Often the source songs are wildly disparate, and the result is frequently better sounding than you might first expect. Who knew that Christina Aguilera mixes well with The Strokes or that Nirvana and Destiny's Child make a good combo?" This is an interesting answer to arguments that online music sharing is nothing but theft.
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Mashed-Up Music
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Artistic and Theft are not mutually exclusive (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Artistic and Theft are not mutually exclusive (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it's illegal distribution of a copyrighted work. Theft involves the removal of property from its owner. The lay term "intellectual property" isn't legally the same sort of thing as material property.
Re:Artistic and Theft are not mutually exclusive (Score:4, Interesting)
Just because something has artistic merit, doesn't mean that distributing someone else's musical creations (albeit in an altered form) without permission is not theft. It's still theft. It's just artistic theft.
Well, I can't be sure if you're serious when you use the word "theft", but let's entertain that idea for a moment.
1. The original hasn't been touched (literally, the master tapes are intact at the studio), and "clean" originals can still be produced, so no theft has taken place.
2. The song has been combined with another song, creating a new and different work. So if someone downloads a copy they don't actually have the original songs. Hard for me to see that as theft.
3. The constitution says we must "promote progress", and suggests that exclusive rights to writings and discoveries is a way to do that. Since creating something new and interesting (both as entertainment [it sounds good] and as social commentary [MP3s are not evil]) must be part of progress, this activity seems to indicate that progress can be promoted without giving these authors exclusive rights over their writings in this particular case.
Now if someone started claiming he was affiliated with one of the artists, or claimed he WAS one of the artists, it would be fair to argue that he's taking away attention, business, and reputation that should rightfully go to the original artist. But that's another kettle o' fish altogether!
Re:Artistic and Theft are not mutually exclusive (Score:4, Insightful)
I take Stephen King's Carrie and Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October, and and I "mash" it together so that it is arguably a new and different work.
The originals haven't been touched (literally, Stephen and Tom have the master manuscripts), and "clean" originals can still be published, so no plagiarism has taken place.
But has plagiarism occurred? I argue yes, and the definition of plagiarism certainly helps my argument: to commit literary theft : present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source.
Now, I submit that, if borrowing text is theft, then so is borrowing musical samples.
We can quibble over definitions, and the greater need of society, and your rights to do what you want with anything that you have purchased, but you are still a thief if you deprive me of anything that is rightfully mine, and this includes depriving me of profits from any of my creations.
If Stephen King and Tom Clancy want to have their works "mashed" together, then it is their right to decide whether this occurs, and their right to the resultant profits.
Ditto musical creations and musical artists.
Penguin Power (Score:3, Funny)
Theft? (Score:4, Insightful)
With "traditional" filesharing, you can argue that if you download Christina whats-her-name's latest album then you're not going to buy it and therefore Miss Aguilera is losing out on the 15 cents that the RIAA will begrudgingly pay her.
But the record companies are never going to release Christina Aguilera mixed with The Strokes, so who is losing anything? For there to be a theft, there has to be a loss.
Copyright violation (Score:4, Insightful)
Copyright. Copyright is a right given to the author to allow them to control how thier work is used, with the intention that (but not restricted to) the rights granted to them will promote production of further works.
There means that, if you wish to use an authors work , then you have to get thier permission. They can say no. It's that simple. Consider the GPL, which relies on copyright. It is not acceptable for a company to take GPL code, add a few bits, and then sell it on. The same applies to musical works.
Granted, there is the clause of fair use. However, fair use is inherently limited, either in scope (to a few friends prehaps), or in extent (a 5 second sample, or a shot quote from a book). With my understanding, fair use doesn _not_ extend to the works outlined above.
(Consider also, that there is more than just the perfromer, there is also the writer to be considered, in terms of claims to copyright).
Re:Copyright violation (Score:5, Informative)
The 1909 copyright revision was done in response to such technological changes as movie making and early recorded music. It was the same revision that first allowed for corporate owners of copyright. I think maybe the 1909 Congress was being influenced by something other than the public good. Allowing innovative uses of someone else's ideas IS for the public good. It may hurt some individuals, but it gives a wider range of creativity to the public.
In 1790, George Washington set for a new law "For the encouragement of learning" not "for the protection of authors." The public is supposed to be the beneficiary of copyright law - whatever benefits the author might see are coincidental.
Re:Copyright violation (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, they were probably influenced by the 1886 Supreme Court case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, which decided that corporations have the same rights as living persons. Up until then, corporations couldn't hold copyrights because corporations didn't have the same rights as people.
And you make it sound as if the MPAA and RIAA have been around trying to squash our rights for the last 100 years, which is not true. In fact, when working on the 1909 copyright law, the House wrote this (from http://www.arl.org/info/frn/copy/timeline.html [arl.org]): So Congress was actually trying to PREVENT entities like the RIAA, and was not influenced by them as you imply.
Allowing innovative uses of someone else's ideas IS for the public good.
Personally I don't see how copying two songs on top of each other can be considered a particularly "innovative use of someone else's ideas" considering that it's not just their ideas that are being used, but their entire work (nor do I find it particularly innovative, but some people may, so that's beside the point).
The public is supposed to be the beneficiary of copyright law - whatever benefits the author might see are coincidental.
No, the author is supposed to be the beneficiary of the copyright so that the public may benefit. Benefiting the author is not coincidental, it is a means to an end. And if you look at the blockquote above, you'll see that Congress WAS interested in benefiting the author of the work.
Moulin Rouge (Score:4, Informative)
herb alpert + public enemy (Score:3, Informative)
Easy, so do it yourself! (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't Bother (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I think they suck.
works with literature too! (Score:5, Funny)
Ladies and gentlemen, courtesy of Project Gutenburg and a short Perl script I just threw together, I give you the first paragraph from my latest novel:
A Moby Tale of Two Dick Cities
It call was me the Ishmael. Best some of years times, ago -- it never was mind the how worst long of precisely -- times, having it little was or the no age money of in wisdom, my it purse, was and the nothing age particular of to foolishness, interest it me was on the shore, epoch I of thought belief, I it would was sail the about epoch a of little incredulity, and it see was the the watery season part of of Light, the it world. Was it the is season a of way Darkness, I it have was of the driving spring off of the hope, spleen it and was regulating the the winter circulation. of whenever despair, I we find had myself everything growing before grim us, about we the had mouth; nothing whenever before it us, is we a were damp, all drizzly going November direct in to my Heaven, soul; we whenever were I all find going myself direct involuntarily the pausing other before way -- coffin in warehouses, short, and the bringing period up was the so rear far of like every the funeral present I period, meet; that and some especially of whenever its my noisiest hypos authorities get insisted such on an its upper being hand received, of for me, good that or it for requires evil, a in strong the moral superlative principle degree to of prevent comparison me only.
I love playing these things (Score:5, Interesting)
The one that always works for me is the Modjo/Eminem mash up - single sided 12" with the words 'Shady Lady' scribbled on it. Probably one of only a couple of hundred copies. The girls love the silly disconess of Modjo and get on the dancefloor..... then after the first chorus Eminem starts rapping over the top and *boom* suddenly there'll be a rush of wannabe MC's towards the DJ booth all pulling Eminem poses and gestures. It's great - it seperates the audience and pulls them together.
But you've gotta use these things sparingly otherwise you begin to sound a bit lame.... DJ'ing is all abotu teasing. I'll sometimes finish up with my other favourite bootleg - AC/DC vs Missy Elliot - Missy had more records released than anyone else last year, and most of them weren't exactly cleard through copyright.
In my mind there's no real crime being commited, only a few hundred copies get released, and if it does get popular then it can usually get licensed and make money for the affected artists. if not well they're losing a few pennies. And they're intended for DJ's - people who generally introduce people to music. I know people who've gone out and picked up AC/DC just because they loved the guitar riff on a bootleg.
Given Acapellas on vinyl a lot of DJ's will do this kinda thing live - check out one of my live mixes [djsnm.com] which shows off a couple of live mash ups.
Oh - and you should check out
BBC radio which has a
Cool Documentary [bbc.co.uk] on bootleg culture which lets ou hear a lot of these.
Its audio collage just like visual collage. (Score:4, Interesting)
This is an accepted technique in the visual arts. It does not produce great art. Its not meant to. It borrows from others to juxtrapose and blend and possibly morph in order to communicate something beyond the original pieces.
Its should and most likely will be granted the same acceptance in audio art. The concept is identical. Its an audio collage, a reassemblage of sound tracks with tempo and/or frequency shifting to create a new wortk of art.
The "Art of Noise" originally used audio samples of any machinery whatsoever and frequency shifted them to achieve different notes, assigned them to a MIDI keyboard and "played" an electric drill or a dripping faucett (evident in some versions of "Paraniomia".) Nobody sued them then.
I know that the "RIAA Bitch" is probably livid about somebody daring to use any tracks without shelling out money to the RIAA but she'll just have to get over it, make deals with the minor artists who are doing it and try to co-opt them into the xxAA's system by finding somebody who is willing to put out CDs of the stuff.
Just wait until the technology advances enough and some kid using a Mac does the same thing with a couple of movie classics (peeling the set from one and the action from another and the characters from a third. Imagine Jet Li as Audrey Hepburn in the "Philadelphia Story" re-enacting the "Tombstone" shoot-out scene set in turn of the century Vienna in Freud's office.)
Jack Valenti or his xxAA successor should go absolutely ballistic.
*Yawn* (Score:3, Informative)
Christina and the Strokes.... (Score:5, Funny)
Time to move on from this argument (Score:3, Insightful)
The recording industry only exists because complex, expensive recording and transmission technology was invented before today's cheap and simple technology that does the same things. If Edison had somehow invented computers and the Internet before the phonograph, there would never have been a reason for a recording industry. We would be accustomed to making and trading recordings of performances since the beginning of the 20th century. It would be completely ridiculous for somebody to jump up and say that this is suddenly evil, and there is going to be a new industry that acquires proprietary rights to performances and sells copies on proprietary media. But it will be a great boon to musicians because they will get 5 or 10 cents for each copy that sells for $20. Huh?? Are you nuts??
Until recording technology, musicians and other performance artists got paid only to perform. They have been able to make more money for a while, and a huge industry has been able to evolve that has made 100 times more money than they have. Well that's all fine, but musicians got along for centuries without any of it. Things have changed and we no longer need the temporary technology or the rules, so let's evolve and move on, and stop moralizing endlessly about it.