How are mashups posing a potential threat to copyright laws online?

Briana J Lugo

MCS 244

Professor Brucker-Cohen

April 29, 2019

How are mashups posing a potential threat to copyright laws online?

Mashups are a mixture of multiple songs to create a whole new song, using different parts of the songs to create a whole new sound. There are definitely many pros and cons when it comes to creating mashups. One of the cons can definitely be the issue with copyright laws such as taking original music from artist and record labels and remixing it and releasing it as their own. Also does the artist who created the mashup get any recognition or does he give all the credit to the original artists. In the article “Grey Album Producer Explains How He Did It” by Corey Moss discusses the details on how Brian Burton created the Grey Album, which is a mashup of The White Album by The Beatles and The Black Album by Jay-Z. The Grey Album is one of the most popular mashup albums in America.  In the article Moss states “As much time as Burton spent at his computer, he doesn’t take all the credit for The Grey Album. He truly believes the two source albums were a good fit”. Burton gives a lot of his credit to The Beatles and Jay-Z for his Grey Album, he explains that without them two his album would not exist. In some ways mashups can be tricky because some artist might feel like their original is being disrespected and stolen, which goes back to the copyright laws. On the other hand there are some pros when it comes to mashups.In the article “1 + 1 + 1 = 1 The new math of mashups” by Sasha Frere-Jones she states “Mashups find new uses for current digital technology, a new iteration of the cause-and-effect relationship behind almost every change in pop-music aesthetics: the gear changes, and then the music does”. Mashups create new music and sounds as well, it provides new content for artist. There is a lot of work that goes into creating a mashup. Burton explains how it took him months to create the Grey Album and how he almost wanted to give up.

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