Mashed-Up Music

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.

Re:Artistic and Theft are not mutually exclusive

[bbillian]

What about Andy Warhool's Campbell's Soup [tigtail.org] ?

Is that theft of the trademarked Campbells soup can design, or is it art?

the original mash-ups

[jeffehobbs]

John Oswald's entire "Plunderphonics" album, which was as far as I remember is also not able to be legally sold, is available for download in wav and mp3 format here [plunderphonics.com]. Fascinating stuff -- also check out Oswald's "Plexure" album on John Zorn's Tzadik label if you're interested in this kind of music.

~jeff

Re:Theft?

[lambadomy]

If I put out a book that was nothing but paragraphs of faulkner alternating with paragraphs of hemingway, I'd still be violating both of those copyrights. Same thing here. I guess the level of mixing could alter the content sufficiently (alternating words or even letters probably would be indistinguishable garbage), but these mp3s are pretty identifiable.

Re:uh.. rong name

[pommes]

this "mashed-up" music style is calles "bastard pop".
see more at http://fm4.orf.at/connected/81238/main [fm4.orf.at] (sorry only german).

-pommes

Re:Artistic and Theft are not mutually exclusive

[Dr. Awktagon]

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!

I love playing these things

[szyzyg]

When you're a DJ and you need something to grab the audiences attention an unheard bootleg always gets them going, they're like secret weapons in you DJ box.

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.

[crovira]

Mashes are using tracks as if they were "object trouvés" (found objects) and blending them in an audio collage.

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. :-)

Re:Artistic and Theft are not mutually exclusive

[Chucow]

I find it interesting that there is so much controversy about two artists tracks being mixed together. This has been done forever in one way, shape, or form. DJ's have made tracks using music from two different artists for a long time, and nothing has changed except the way it is mixed, increasing audiences, and the method of distribution. In my opinion, increasing audiences is definetely a good thing, nice to see the people who make cool remixes of music get more public recognition.

While artists should still receive credit for the use of their songs, so should the people who mix them.

Zappa did it first

[Wumpus]

Frank Zappa used to combine instrumental tracks from different shows, different songs, played at different speeds and time signatures. According to the liner notes to one of his albums, his engineer called this "the Fostex guitar", because instead of playing a guitar solo, Zappa would just press Play on the Fostex tape, and sit back.

Re:Copyright violation

[ipfwadm]

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.

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]):

The main object to be desired in expanding copyright protection accorded to music has been to give the composer an adequate return for the value of his composition, and it has been a serious and difficult task to combine the protection of the composer with the protection of the public, and to so frame an act that it would accomplish the double purpose of

securing to the composer an adequate return for all use made of his composition and at the same time prevent the formation of oppressive monopolies [emphasis mine], which might be founded upon the very rights granted to the composer for the purpose of protecting his interests.

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.

Kathy Acker does this, regarded as art

[quistas]

There's a particularly heinous author named Kathy Acker who "writes" books that have *huge* chunks that are minimally changed from other authors (she rips off Neuromancer, for instance). The plots are ripped off entirely, lots of phrases, sentences, references.

She's regarded as "a proto-feminist icon who disrupts traditional male patriachial ownership of art" (seriously, that's what my lit professor in college told me... and my grade suffered for disagreeing).

Acker's never been sued or prosecuted.