Mash-Up

Copyrights are the reasoning why people can create content they desire and not have to worry about having what they create being stolen. There are people who generally want to take others hard work and claim it as their own but then there are those who want to pay homage to the originator. They feel inspired to be a creator of something that may bring them inspiration and want to do something that inspires them from another project that was created. The issue for some creators is that people are “seemingly” taking something they’ve created and combined it with someone else’s body of work to create a new idea of how their creations can sound together. So, are mashups the new threat to artists around the world? Are artists going to lose money on what they’ve created? Will there be a new stance on mash-ups? We will take a look and see what it is.

A mash-up is where two or more elements of pre-existing music, usually from different genres are combined to create an entirely new song. So, a mash-up would be someone combining The Beatles and Jay-Z to create a new sound combining an old rock band and a newer genre of music from a hip-hop artist resulting in something different. Actually, that’s exactly what a DJ by the name of “Danger Mouse” did. In the article “GREY ALBUM PRODUCER DANGER MOUSE EXPLAINS HOW HE DID IT”, it states: “Burton, a laid-back fanatic of both the Beatles and Jay-Z, never imagined he would be opening his bedroom door to a reporter. A certain level of ambiguity has always surrounded his music, and he was especially keen about keeping the details behind The Grey Album a mystery. As the album has become a cultural landmark, though, Burton has felt a need to explain the process behind it. A cease-and-desist letter he can handle, but hordes of rookie remixers thinking it takes a couple of days to make a similar album is burning Burton. “A lot of people just assumed I took some Beatles and, you know, threw some Jay-Z on top of it or mixed it up or looped it around, but it’s really a deconstruction,” he explained. “It’s not an easy thing to do”, and that shows he just wanted to combine two things that essentially inspired him and work well together. What’s funny about this is the “Grey Album” came out in February in 2004 and then nine months later Jay-Z and Linkin Park collaborated to create the “Collision Course” album which was a massive success. Although people are against it, there are some things people can learn in this incident when they aren’t being too defensive about their art. These are moments where we can combine powers to make something better.

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