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.

Comments

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):

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.