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So Amazing, So Illegal
Jamie gave me a nice writeup of a mashup where the writer shares some random youtube mashup video that you maybe have seen before called the Mother of all Funk Chords. It's a pretty amazing artistic achievement and probably worth at least a quick glance of your time. But the larger point should be taken seriously. He says "If your reaction to this crate of magic is 'Hm. I wonder how we'd go about suing someone who "did this" with our IP?' instead of, 'Holy crap, clearly, this is the freaking future of entertainment,' it's probably time to put some ramen on your Visa and start making stuff up for your LinkedIn page. Because, this is what your new Elvis looks like."
I write music... well, modest little piano pieces. I haven't uploaded any videos of me playing to youtube (yet), but I would be THRILLED to find that my stuff had been reworked into something like this.
Then again, I have considered issuing my tunes as open source (there's some places to do that online.)
This space available.
>>>why no one ever produced any music, art, or literature before copyright protection was in place
They did produce music, but they also had crap jobs. Johannes Bach was little more than a choir director for his local church - and he hated it with a passion. At least today, with protection of songwriters' creations, they can live better lifestyles.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Kutiman, the artist who did the Thu-You audiovideo compositions, did a marvelous job. As other posters have noted, these songs are generally good compositions, beyond the novelty effect.
But, seriously, there isn't that much new here. These really aren't even mash-ups, because such extensive editing has happened. The classic mash-up, Dark Side of The Moon played against The Wizard of Oz retains the originals in great part, and while their combination brings a sum that is greater than the individual parts, it would be difficult to argue that it would qualify for fair-use exception from copyright protection.
The Thru-You project deconstructs the source material into individual components and re-assembles as an entirely new whole. There is no question of copyright violation because it is clearly a derivative work. It's an exceptionally cool idea, and in this case done very well, but collaging isn't new, even within the music industry.
There are entire genres of popular music that are devoted to construction of new songs from sampled components of other songs. Perhaps the first genre where this happened with distinction was House music, starting, what, 20 years ago? Of course, the more technology advances, the more deconstructed-reconstructed the music can become, but still, someone like club master Stephane Pompougnac has been publishing his Hotel Costes line of recompositions for 10 years now.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Ah, but without that passionate hatred, his music would have suffered and we wouldn't even know his name much like those child actors that we wonder whatever happened to (and what their names were). =)
Future generations will look back on this time in history and wonder why the recording industry was so hot to protect top 40 crap-pop.
Probably not. I suspect future generations will look back and ask, wide-eyed, "Wow, they could just steal arbitrary two-note sequences from other artists dead less than the full millennium required by Disney? Didn't they worry about getting the death penalty?"
There's nothing new or illegal about this.
This is what subsampling law is explicitly for; the law even goes as far as to say how long each clip can be and still be legal (and he's way, way in the clear.) Intellectual property law explicitly allows things like this in the United States as long as they're within guidelines, and this is well within guidelines. This is how the TV news and rappers get through their day.
As far as new, bands like White Noise, James Tenney and The Beatles were doing this in the early 1960s; your choice of "The New Elvis" is particularly apropos, as this was determined legal in 1961 regarding James Tenney's Collage #1 ("Blue Suede"), made out of Elvis samples (though some would argue that there are earlier examples.)
This is what my old Elvis looked like.
But the video is freaking epic, that much is true.
StoneCypher is Full of BS
Go listen to Frank Zappa and the Mother's 1966 "Return of the Son of Monster Magnet", one of the most groundbreaking tracks of the twentieth century. It's "what freaks sound like when you turn them loose in a recording studio at one o'clock in the morning on $500 worth of rented percussion equipment" -- pretty much something they conceived in a dark room.
I'm pretty sure that Beethoven, Mozart, et. al. conceived some of their music in dark rooms.
Yes, live improvised music, or composed music varied in response to the crowd, is great too. But the fact that live stuff can be great doesn't preclude stuff conceived in a dark room by artists working alone also being great.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
So are you for or against "Contemporary Christian Music"? There are both good and bad sounding bands out there. I agree there is more bad than good. I do prefer to listen to the more edgier Christian groups. Currently Disciple, POD, Fireflight, Decemberadio, HOH, and Reliant K are on the playlist. Admittedly most of them aren't edgy per se.
Don't blame me for redundant posts. I can't type very fast. Hence the user ID.
Rusted Root - When I woke
Coldplay x&y
The Departed soundtrack
Josh Groban - Closer
WOW Hits 2009
Kutless
Thousand Foot Krutch
Seventh Day Slumber
Inches away in a binder are bands such as old school blink182, Metallica S&M, old school sugar ray, STP, Classical music, smashing pumpkins and the like...my pandora consists of bluegrass, bloodhound Gang, and Contemp Christian. So I have a wide taste, I'm not much for death metal or any of that new age death of Hip hop crap. But Contemp Christian puts out some great stuff. If you like metal Check out 'family force 5'. Chances are if you don't like christian music, it is because you have a personal vendetta against anything christian, and well, I wont argue with bigots so you would be on your own.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Better, but I prefer Mortal/Juggernautz :) If you haven't heard "Fathom" you owe it to yourself to give it a listen.
My biggest problem with CCM is the artists I like (and there are quite a few) are inconsistent. For example, on Jeremy Camp's "Carried Me" there are *two* songs that I actually like; the rest I can do without (and one of the two is a cover, IIRC). Unfortunately, it often seems that Christian musicians put all of the time and effort into the message, and aren't particularly concerned about the musical wrapper, thereby creating music that is often, well, bland.
I *want* to listen to Christian music -- I'd rather fill my head with something positive than "I want to **** you like an animal" (with apologies to Mr. Reznor). But sometimes, I just want to rock out with Rage Against the Machine or chill with some "Dark Side of the Moon" and there just isn't a lot of CCM that can compare right now.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
mashups and mixups go back decades, and funk itself is thirty-forty years old.
I don't think the submitter meant that amateur funk was the future of entertainment. His point was more sensible, but not one that I agree with: if some amateur could produce something this good with found scraps on YouTube, then the big boys should be scared. Or, more simply, modern equipment has made the gap between amateur and professional musical entertainment get small enough that it should scare the professionals.
Personally I think that professionals will always have a place, at the very least finding talent. Most people don't look at finding a gem in the rubble as a hobby - they just want to tune to a station that will play music that they like.
But amateurs having more exposure... that can only be a good thing. This particular example may be nothing spectacular, but it still is better than at least 90% of the album filler crap that the so-called "professionals" release. It's a rare album that doesn't have significant amounts of crap on it...
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It ain't just the chords. Proof. "Best" listened to with headphones.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
American Idol isn't kitsche it's just bad. Support local live music.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
>>>But businessmen get to buy exclusive rights for the couple hundred bucks the artist needs to make rent that month; and then get rich on the IP they conned out of the creator! Yay?
I defer my answer to someone who knows the business better than me: J.Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5:
You're missing the point. Several, actually.
First, having talked to distributors, I can tell you straight up that if a show has had too much online exposure and too many downloads, if it's too much out there, they won't distribute it because the market that would want to see it already has. So you're helping to destroy any chance of a show getting picked up. The logic of "well if I watch it that'll help to create a market for that show" is a convenient untruth downloaders tell themselves that has not once ever been validated. It just never happens. It's just a justification.
Second, when you download a show (and most of the shows that are downloaded don't fall into the category of "there's no other way to get it," they're downloads of popular shows and movies)..... it's not just that you're denying the producers/distributors of that movie or TV show the "price" of the DVD (or the commercials not watched). You're also having a direct impact on the creative people who made that show, and taking from them as well.
Actors, writers and directors get paid a fee to make a project, and then they get residuals, which are not a bonus, they are deferred compensation. If the show does well, they share in that; if the show tanks, they share the risk. When shows are downloaded free, those creative people get nothing. Why should this matter? Residuals are what keeps actors and writers and directors able to survive the lean periods between jobs, and those are legion. Those periods can last a year or two sometimes, during which your ONLY source of revenue is residuals.
They help to insure that the talent pool is available when needed and not out working day jobs to make ends meet.
Downloaders think there's no difference between data and entertainment, that everything should be free. Great, it's free to YOU. Now, how do you propose paying the people who produce these shows at the costs of millions of dollars, and the people who need to put food on the plate when they are getting nothing in return?
jms
From: "jmsatb5@aol.com"
Newsgroup: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:36:27 -0700 (PDT)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
If your reaction to this crate of magic is 'Hm. I wonder how we'd go about suing someone who "did this" with our IP?' instead of, 'Holy crap, clearly, this is the freaking future of entertainment,'
what if your reaction is "this looks and sounds like ass" ?
Nickelback recycles their songs. Several years ago someone mathematically picked apart their songs and showed they are all the same.
There's lots of bands that only really have one song with rewritten lyrics each time. Nickelback is hardly the worst offender.
(I have no problem with Nickelback. It's nice, average middle of the road poprock. Not something I'd ever spend money on, but it doesn't give me homicidal urgest either, which isn't too bad considering some of the stuff out there.)