Comments on: Why The Music Industry Isn’t Suing Mashup Star ‘Girl Talk’

By: omurphy

omurphy — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 14:30:31 +0000

Part of the issue is also that with today’s technology, anyone can do what Girl Talk does and release it. Suing Girl Talk won’t stop this, if anything it will cause a huge scene and motivate other artists to do what Girl Talk does.

Record companies probably just realize that it’s a losing battle and so they won’t bother. Also, the fact that Girl Talk is still mostly a fringe artist helps too. If his stuff were regularly played on MTV, then the lawsuits might role in.

By: ECartwright

ECartwright — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 21:49:32 +0000

I don’t think the issue is that Pete Rock can’t sample without a license but Girltalk can. It’s just that Pete Rock/DJ Premier/Rick Rubin camp has come and gone. They all are from the era where they had to license their sounds. This new guy is trying to change the system… The problem with the article I had was that it boiled it down into a black/white dichotomy which I don’t think reflects what is happening in the courts. I think it’s really a desire to maintain the same conceptual framework in a world of technology that has basically destroyed it. The key is to create a new conceptual framework- such as compulsory licensing with statutory fees paid by the new artists to the old ones. That would make it so Biz Markie would have never had to go to court since O’Sullivan would have been legally bound to license his material to him. The new technology has made it so that the original artist should no longer have a say on whether or not to license- but they should still be compensated for the use of their work. Perhaps there could be varying categories of licenses depending on the extent to which the new recording would be similar to the original… That sounds like the next step in the doctrine.

By: Copycense

Copycense — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:58:27 +0000

Mr. J: We have no quarrel with disagreement — on that piece, it perhaps even expected. Thank you for forwarding even in light of your disagreement.

By: mr j

mr j — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:24:24 +0000

I disagree with some of your larger positions, Copycense, but overall that was a super interesting read and a perspective that i hadn’t seen before. i’m sending it to my wife, whose columbia composition students are tackling copyright, with a couple of them writing specifically about gillis.

By: Copycense

Copycense — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 18:32:26 +0000

We suggested in 2009 that this issue is far more complex than simply Gillis being an “appealing defendant” (although, that’s part of the issue).

http://www.copycense.com/2009/03/girl_talk_as_fair_use_martyr.html

Also, I recommend hearing the answer Illegal Art CEO Philo Farnsworth gave during Syracuse University’s REPLAY symposium on sound sampling in April 2010. Videos online at http://sampling.syr.edu. Farnsworth’s comments come at the end of the video for Session 2 – Legal Issues in Sampling.

By: ccj

ccj — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 16:34:42 +0000

It seems extraordinary that the music labels and tv content owners aren’t working feverishly on a business model for mashups, both musical and video.

…everything will be mashed up…
….it’ll get the attention also…

By: bobster

bobster — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:22:14 +0000

The EFF is just an astroturfing organization for the hardware manufacturers. They hate it when content creators get paid.

By: Peter Friedman

Peter Friedman — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:16:43 +0000

I have been saying exactly this for a long time. http://tinyurl.com/2co4vxk. And the industry has a huge amount to lose if they lose on the issue of fair use on recorded samples. Going back to Biz Markie being slammed in one case in the early ’90s, the industry found it far more profitable to charge for every sample and convince the world that’s “the law,” than to ever have the issue truly and finally resolved.