You would most likely say that music and movie remixes are the general feature and foundation of remixing. Although, remixes do not have to specifically rely on technology. We create, learn and assemble products not just music, for example it could be the recycling or remixing of 80’s clothing worn now with a slight twist (Moore 2014). Some may argue that a lack of creativeness may be the cause of the DJ but personally I think it’s a great way of sharing and creating something relatively new out of something pre-loved.
One of the main concepts on remix culture is produsage (Bruns 2010). Anyone these days has access to movie making and music mixing programs such as iMovie and Audacity. It is evermore easy to upload tracks to the Internet for people to download or listen to on websites such as Soundcloud. But by no means does this stop at music, it can continue on to journalism with open source websites such as Wikipedia (Bruns 2010). The Internet, changing technology and the ability to download is what makes remixing so popular and easy. Some remixes and mash-ups even make their way to the Top 40 iTunes charts like the recent (and may I add horrid) remix of Savages “Swing” by Joel Fletcher (2013). One other thing is when artists take other artists songs and remake it and don’t credit them for example Beyonce. Don’t get me wrong, I am a major Beyonce fan and anything she does or says is amazing but her song “Run The World (Girls)”(2011) was a major rip off of Major Lazers song “Pon De Floor”(2009). She didn’t even recognise Major Lazer as a featured artist on the track. Diplo (the creator of the beat) is recognised in the credits of the track, Major Lazer are not directly recognised when the song is aired on radio or music video channels. So, where do we draw the line at music copyright. Although in this case it was legal, to what extent should an original track be credited copyrighted or not?
Sources:
Bruns, Axel (2010), ‘Distributed creativity : filesharing and produsage’, In Sonvilla-Weiss, Stefan (Ed.) Mashup cultures. Springer, Wien, pp. 24-37.
Moore, C 2014, Remix Culture, Tutorial, University of Wollongong, 30th April
Fletcher, J, Savage 2013, ‘Swing’, Swing-Single, Hussle Recordings
Diplo, 2009, ‘Pon De Floor’, Guns Don’t Kill People… Lazers Do (CD), Downtown Music
Knowles, B 2011, ‘Who Run the World (Girls)’, 4 (CD), Sony Music Entertainment
Oh Madeline 