Sunday, September 18, 2011

Danger Mouse, Mashups and Copyright Laws

This reading focuses on the issue of Copyright laws and how artists such as Danger Mouse, and Girltalk are using older music in their "mash ups". The music industry as a whole is restraining technology because it continues to create different forums for people to access the music legally and illegally. These new forums can cause big problems in terms of copyright laws, where artists may use music that they do not own and then pass it off as parts of their work. Economically, researching and discovering these new forums can be very expensive limiting the abilities of music companies to research and create new technology. Another reason for the music industry to restrain technology is the new technology is taking control from the labels such as EMI and giving it to the fans, by giving them the ability to access the music in many different ways.

Even though the DJ's themselves may not be charging people for their new music there are individuals who are profiting from the "mashups". This whole dilemma brings into question whether or not these artists are in fact breaking copyright laws or if their work is simply art. In my opinion, there is a very fine line which must be walked here. Artists such as Girltalk and Danger Mouse, need to be careful with their work because it depends completely on other artists work. I feel that works such as the grey album need to pay some royalties to the label companies from EMI because they are using parts of their work these labels own. These royalties should not be too great though, I believe the labels benefit from the use of their songs whether or not they are paid for directly through royalties or not. This is because anytime a song is heard in one form or another it may help draw more fans in leading to more record sales for the original work. So there needs to be a balance in the royalties which are paid because record labels can benefit from the use of their music regardless of the royalties.

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