Blog Entry #3: Mashups and Copyright Law

As personal computing and access to audio and video editing software became popularized in the 1990s, so too did the phenomena of mashups.Mashups are, in the words of journalist LiliAna Andreano, the “digital lovechildren of two or more songs.” Over time, the meaning of mashup has expanded to include digitally manipulated creations resulting from two or more pre-existing works.

In short, a mashup is the creative recombination of text, music, or video to make a new work of art. We see and hear mashups on the web, on TV, and on the radio. Mashups can be considered multimedia collages, which repurpose content to create a new media art work for art's sake, for parody, or for a political or social purpose. They are an emerging form of media art that has been made possible by the accessibility of digital technology. Take a look at the list below of mashup examples:

1. The widely popular television show Glee brought mashups to the mainstream in its Vitamin C and Mashup episodes, which featured the musical melding of Bon Jovi and Usher, along with Sisqo's Thong Song and a tune from the musical My Fair Lady.

2. A Fair(y) Use Tale, a video created by Professor Eric Faden of Bucknell University, is a mashup of various Disney cartoons used to illuminate American copyright law in a comedic and ironic way.

3. In 2004, DJ Danger Mouse released The Grey Album, a mashup of vocals from Jay-Z's The Black Album and instrumentals from The Beatles' White Album (if you know your colour theory, the album's name makes perfect sense!). The album gained notoriety and popularity when EMI (the music label that holds copyright for The Beatles) threatened DJ Danger Mouse with legal action for the unauthorized use of the Fab Four's music. This controversy spurred a debate about the current state of copyright law and contemporary creative culture. 

In your blog entry, choose one of the three examples above and answer the following questions as they apply to your example:

1. What is this mashup trying to communicate? Is it technical experiment, social or political commentary, a comedic parody, or an abstract work of media art?
2. Did its creator follow or break copyright laws in its production?
3. Do you think that mashup like this requires copyright permission? Why or why not.