Year in Review: Culture/Remixing

There have been a number of highlights this year in the field of remixing culture.

Johannes Kreidler
Protesting the constraints of copyright law, avant-garde musician Johannes Kreidler composed a track sampling 70,200 other musical works in 33 seconds.[1] He was required to fill out a separate form for each of the original works and submit them to GEMA – the German music rights organisation.[2]

GirlTalk
The mashup artist GirlTalk released a new album called Feed the Animals. The album was released under a Creative Commons non commercial license with some commentators reflecting on the irony of a follow on creator limiting the commercial uses of his work which itself is based on commercial music.[3]

There continues to be debate as to whether Gillies art is legal or not with much discussion concerning the limits of fair use protection for remixing without the consent of the original copyright holders.[4]

Radiohead
In April 2008 Radiohead made available the source tracks of the song Nude on iTunes and permitted users to remix the song.[5] Creations could then be uploaded to http://www.radioheadremix.com/ where fans could vote on the most popular remix with winning tracks released on iTunes for sale.[6]

Metallica
One interesting article concerning the release of the new Metallica album concerned the band’s European label, Universal’s, decision not to allow a Swedish newspaper to interview the band.[7] This was because an earlier review of the album was done on the basis of a remix of the album made available on file sharing networks.[8] Commentators noted that the refusal to participate in the interview simply created greater opportunity for press coverage of the remixed version of the ablum.

[1] P2p Blog, Musician mashes up 70,200 songs, delivers lists to rights holders by the truck load (21 August 2008) <http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-826.html> at 22 August 2008
[2] P2p Blog, Musician mashes up 70,200 songs, delivers lists to rights holders by the truck load (21 August 2008) <http://www.p2p-blog.com/item-826.html> at 22 August 2008
[3] TechDirt, Why Doesn't Girl Talk Allow Commercial Use? (25 July 2008) <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080707/0016231597.shtml> at 28 July 2008
[4] Digital Music News, Resnikoff's Parting Shot: Girl Talk (31 July 2008) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/073008parting> at 7 August 2008
[5] Digital Music News, Radiohead Experiment Turns to Remixing; iTunes Collaboration (2 April 2008) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/040108radiohead> at 3 April 2008
[6] Digital Music News, Radiohead Experiment Turns to Remixing; iTunes Collaboration (2 April 2008) <http://www.digitalmusicnews.com/stories/040108radiohead> at 3 April 2008
[7] TechDirt, Metallica Still Struggling With Embracing The Whole File Sharing Thing (16 September 2008) <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080916/0258502283.shtml> at 21 September 2008
[8] TechDirt, Metallica Still Struggling With Embracing The Whole File Sharing Thing (16 September 2008) <http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20080916/0258502283.shtml> at 21 September 2008