Music in the Digital Age

Major changes in the recording industry have taken place in recent years due to the online availability of music. These changes have seen inevitable and obvious to most everyone except for the record labels themselves. Due to their resistance to change their business models, the major record labels have been struggling to remain as successful – with threats of lawsuits used as a common tool.

While the record company’s mistakes are often discussed, I wish to look at attempts to successfully adapt from different areas of the music industry. What it means to be a musician has slightly shifted, in positive and negative ways, as innovative self-promotion becomes a standard part of the game. Musicians are able to draw attention to themselves online, before even receiving a record deal, giving more individuals the opportunity to garner a following, which no longer has to be located in one specific region before working on a national presence. While increasing the diversity of musicians in the field seems ideal, not all of them can make lasting careers. It appears that an artist’s potential to build lasting presence has decreased and most artist’s whose music makes it onto the charts will be one-hit wonders . There is still the potential for smaller artists to earn money, however, because the public’s interest in spending money on music has shifted – not disappeared. While many people are not buying music traditionally, they spend money on bands in alternative ways  such as through concert tickets. Finally, the label EMI has adopted a new business plan, becoming more of a “rights management company” who also help release music. While this appears to be a lucrative plan, it also ignores the needs of many artists at EMI.

I wish to examine the economic incentives driving decisions such as this, how the digital age has redefined the roles of artists, and who these changes are benefiting.

Black and White and Grey All Over

The Internet is the driving force that has led to many legal debacles in modern times.  Through the Internet, people now have a free gateway to any information he or she wishes to have.  This free access to information is also what is causing many of the legal issues. 

DJ Danger Mouse created a new album bringing together both Jay Z’s The Black Album and the Beatles’ The White Album and created what he called The Grey Album.  This new album was a mashup that he had created utilizing both Jay Z’s lyrics and the Beatles beats and chords.  What DJ Danger Mouse didn’t know was how his new tracks would quickly go viral and be the cause of a lot of copyright and serious legal issues.

 

The issues surrounding DJ Danger Mouse’s The Grey Album reflects the problems that major companies and people with power face on a daily basis.  DJ Danger Mouse didn’t even have control over what his album would become as soon as the tracks were put on the internet.  The Internet served as a highway for the tracks to spread like wild fire.  He originally only made 300 copies of his album to give to his friends and family, but as soon as that album hit the Internet, word of mouth led to the album being downloaded by hundreds of thousands of people from all over.  (Here is a link to download The Grey Album for yourself)

The legal issues with this case deal with the fact that DJ Danger Mouse did not seek to get legal rights to use the Beatles tracks in his mashups.  This copyright infringement is what led the EMI to seek legal action.  EMI claimed that DJ Danger Mouse violated a serious copyright law.

The grey area of EMI’s argument, however, is that there is no set price or detailed description within copyright laws explaining how DJ Danger Mouse could have gotten the rights to the samples even if he had tried to go about using the samples legally.  If it is true that copyrights exist for the purpose of protecting an artist's economic and artistic or intellectual interests and property than shouldn’t there be a cost association for people who desire to buy rights to samples of the music or property?

The copyright laws need to reconsidered and reevaluated for clarity.  If these laws do not become thorough and comprehensive than we will continue having these legal battles.  The Internet is a powerful technology that allows for people to use and distribute music among other things whether it is sanctioned or not sanctioned by the industry from which they originate.  This is why copyright laws need to be clearly black or white and we need to move them out of the grey area.  

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.