Copyright laws were made to ensure the safety and security of the World Wide Web but in some situations, users made music to gain popularity from their fans and their songs could top the charts in the music business, then what happens when two recordings were combined to create a powerful song that could spread a message about the world around humans, that is called a mashup. There are two definitions of a mashup: in music, a mashup is a recording created by digitally combining and synchronizing instrumental tracks with vocal tracks from two or more different songs, while in computing, it’s a web page or application created by combining data or functionality from different sources. Mashups could create new things by mixing two or more objects together so users could get the hang of them but are mashups a threat to copyright laws so users could use them to get more songs?
In the New Yorker article entitled, “1+1+1=1: The New Math of Mashups”, Sasha Frere-Jones pointed out that “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. If there is an electric guitar of the mashup, it is a software package called Acid Pro, which enables one to put loops of different songs both in time and in tune with each other.” This quote is a fact that musicians used software packages to create more mashups so they could give them out to their fans without the hassle. Another example is Corey Moss’ MTV article, “Grey Album Producer Danger Mouse Explains How He Did It”, which is about the producer of the Grey Album, Brian Burton and a mashup between hip-hop icon Jay-Z and 1960s British band The Beatles. Moss explained that “In December when he heard Jay-Z was releasing an a cappella version of The Black Album for remixers, he came up with a crazy idea to blend it with the Beatles’ famous The White Album and make The Grey Album. Three months and a cease-and-desist letter later, the album is at the center of a massive downloading debate and is the most in-demand piece of media since the Paris Hilton sex tape.” He also stated that “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.” This quote made me believe that mashups can make the music industry more relevant to its advantage in society.
Mashups not only does work in music but also work in computing that in the Mute article, “InfoEnclosure 2.0”, Dmytri Kleiner and Brian Wyrick mentioned about the use of Web 2.0 that “The value produced by users of Web 2.0 services such as YouTube is captured by capitalist investors. In some cases, the actual content they contribute winds up the property of site owners. Private appropriation of community created value is a betrayal of the promise of sharing technology and free cooperation. Unlike Web 1.0, where investors often financed an expensive capital acquisition, software development and content creation, a Web 2.0 investor mainly need to finance hype-generation, marketing, and buzz. The infrastructure is widely available for cheap, the content is free and cost of the software, at least that much of it that is not also free, is negligible. Basically, by providing some bandwidth and disk space, you are able to become a successful internet site if you can market yourself effectively.” This meant that Capitalists wanted to use Web 2.0 as an investment so they could earn millions or billions of dollars for their business.
In the end, mashups are truly a threat to copyright laws online because people wanted to use their money to finance websites so they could make them private without sharing online content to users in society today but users could take down capitalism by creating websites that feature sharing technology and freedom to ensure their safety and security for the Internet.