Music Mashing/sampling Ethical or not?

[Adam J McKay]

A friend of mine recently wrote a paper on music mashing and sampling and the ethical and legal issues surrounding it. I was wondering what everyone thinks about the subject.

Prime example of what I am talking about is Greg Gillis, AKA Girl Talk.
he has come out with several albums that are nothing but other peoples songs he has downloaded ( illegally ) mashed together to form something new. He also goes out and sells the album.

Another example is Dj Danger Mouse who mixed the beatles white album and Jay'z's black album to make the Grey album. He was ordered later to stop selling the album etc because it was copyright infringement.


What does everyone think about the subject?

 

[Adam J McKay]

I personally feel that it's a very grey area. I think it's wrong to take other peoples stuff, mix it up and selling it as your own. For me it would be like someone taking one of my images, photo shopping it and selling it as their own.

That being said, I don't think it's wrong to play a show somewhere and mix music, dj etc. I also don't think it's wrong to use copyrighted material in non profit ways. I.E making a youtube video of your family vacation using your favorite song. I think the song and artist should be credited but financial compensation...really? I would have no issue with people using my art in such a way, whether it be photographs, film or music.

So where draw the line?