In simple terms, mashups are generally when the vocal from one song is laid over the music from another. In the article “1+1+1=1 The New Math of Mashups,” a well-known mashup album called “Collision Course” is a combination of Linkin Park’s vocals with work from Jay Z’s “The Black Album” which proved to be an issue because “Jay’s song ‘99 Problems’ uses two huge samples and has four different credited publishers. That’s before you’ve added anyone else’s music to it, which would be yet another publisher or two. Making a mashup with that song means the label issuing the mashup has to convince all the publishers involved to take a reduction in royalty—otherwise, it won’t be profitable for the label.” According to Wikipedia, a royalty is a payment made by one party, the licensee or franchisee to another that owns a particular asset, the licensor or franchisor for the right to ongoing use of that asset. So to ask the other publishers to take a reduction in payment clearly proves to be an issue because it’s the limbo of whether the label as a whole earning profit is more important than the publishers themselves earning a greater profit. Also, the level at which the artists are at is important because the publishers won’t want to agree to earning less profit if the aren’t well-known as Jay Z or Linkin Park. One of the main issues will always be the labels wanting to ensure that they are gaining some profit from the mashup even though the only part they had in it would be the the ownership rights to the vocals or beats from the artists under their name. I’m the same article, it was stated that you can “See mashups as piracy if you insist, but it is more useful, viewing them through the lens of the market, to see them as an expression of consumer dissatisfaction. Armed with free time and the right software, people are rifling through the lesser songs of pop music and, in frustration, choosing to make some of them as good as the great ones.” This is one of the main potential threats to copyright laws online because you can’t argue with the fact that most people create mashups because they are unhappy with the choice of songs being released by various labels/artists. People have an idea of what they want to hear or what songs/artists they think would make a great combination and if the labels aren’t giving the people what they want, you can’t blame them for wanting to take matters into their own hands and create music they crave. Most of the time people want to hear something new, fresh, different and many artists continuously release similar sounds and beats on every album. There is no ill intention in mind when people create these mashups and it’s technically not stealing or interfering with profits, so that’s the real threat is that there is no threat. Companies/labels want to make profit from the hard work and passion that people who create mashups possess, but will not give back any form of profit when they take our creative ideas and claim them as their own.
Apr 30