Why Do Mash Up Artists

Everyday new music from around the world is released to popular distribution websites and stores such as ITunes, Pandora, Soundcloud and Spotify. Artists, whether as trendy as Taylor Swift or some smaller such as an artist that plays at a local coffee shop, perform songs in front of an audience quite often. Many of the more famous artists tend to stick with a set list of songs that they have recorded when performing at their concerts, but some like to stray off and perform covers to songs that were written and or recorded by a different artist. There are innumerous amounts of cover bands and tribute artists that focus entirely on remaking songs from other artist into their own piece of art. This is where the line gets blurred. For instance, with copyrights on almost all records that are recorded through a record company, how do these artists legally perform these covers? If the proper royalties are paid to the person or company that holds the right to a song’s words or tune, then the artist is free to create whatever they desire with the piece without having to worry about the legality of this process. However, this is not the case for song sampling.

In the past twenty-five years, mash up artists have become very popular among teens and young adults. A mash up artist is an artist that takes …show more content…
Gillis has been able to avoid any lawsuits for his music by pleading that his work is protected under the fair use. Fair use is “the right to copy a portion of a copyrighted work without permission because your use is for a limited purpose, such as for educational use in a classroom or to comment upon, criticize, or parody the work being sampled” (Stim). In Gillis’ case, he is able to claim that his music is strictly parody and there should not be an