Last semester when I taught this class, I tried to use the example of the “mix tape.” Everyone looked at me and asked “what’s a tape?” Very funny.
What shocked me is that all but one class member had never made a mix tape! (Or even a Mix CD). Good lord! I guess with myspace and all this internet stuff, the tradition of making a Mix-Tape to win over a potential paramour has fallen into disfavor? So sad…
I use the “mix tape” analogy a lot in class, so get into the wayback machine to a time when if you wanted to throw game at somebody, you didn’t send a text message like “HI HOW R U, UR HOT YO”. Nope, back in my day, you had to put some effort into it! Call me old-fashioned, but I still dig the mix-tape. Even though the last one I made wound up being smashed in my driveway by the girlfriend for whom I made it. She’s long gone, but I keep finding shards of broken CD in the driveway a year later. There’s a metaphor, eh?
Ok, enough of the “why.” Lets start with the “what.”
Read the following (and listen to the audio)
The Mix Tape: Art and Artifact.
Don’t do any research on this. Just write 250-500 words on your impressions of “the mix tape” as a concept. Have you ever made one? (substitute “mix CD” if age-wise it is necessary). Tell the story, if you like. But, most importantly, discuss what you think the copyright implications of your mix tape may have been.
I specifically forbid you from doing any research for this. I want you to give me your general uneducated impressions and thoughts. At the end of the semester, we will revisit them and see if your mind has changed.
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July 31, 2007 at 12:24 am |
So Yes I have made a mix tape and a mix CD. I remeber back in the day when mix tapes were what we used at parties. My uncle made some really good ones and sold them. My version of a mix tape was off the radio. I didnt have much music then…..but I knew when to cut the song so the DJ wouldnt be on the tape and overlap songs by playing with the eqaulizer so it sounded meshed. I guess the best version of a mix tape right now would be like House music in a club or something. I can see I am dating myself here, but whatever. I would like to say recently I have made a new mix CD. I was inspired by my friend and a very strange Spring break that gave me the idea. I was also very sick of he radio and dont have a Ipod converer. I adore mix tapes, and it does require a bit more effort than “your hot”. It was like the best poetry you could think of about a person, by a better singer than you. (although, I can kick it pretty well). I know that they are still pretty popular as wedding gifts with the couples favorite music on them… at least they were a few years ago when I was busting my ass to make about 300 mix CD’s that were totally against copyright laws BTW. I think we should have a comeback of the mix tape/CD. I mean its got to be a better line than U R A Qtie!
August 6, 2007 at 6:03 pm |
Sure, I remember the mix tape. Of course, I’m older than many I have encountered in law school as evidenced by my woefully inadequate grasp of modern technology like MP-3, MySpace, and texting. I have enough trouble with e-mail.
But back in the day, I used to carve out mixes all the time. I’d spend the money for the 45s (yeah, we’d had those back then – remember the little yellow insert you put in it to play it on your turntable) or for the albums and then throw in a good Radio Shack Gold-90 cassette (that was the top stuff I could afford folks) and plug away. I would try to put up stuff that wasn’t on the radio and found out most of the radio stuff was some of the worst of the album’s cuts.
At first, the mixes were just for the boom box at the pool or inthe walkman heading to school. I didn’t figure out the whole “spill out your soul” to the proposed girlfriend until someone shared one they made for me. Boy, that was a shocker! I turned around and found the sappy stuff like Air Supply and Barry Manilow (big music pops when I was a tween starting to discover “true love) and mixed it with some Elton John or Billy Joel or Beatles (remember the red and blue album – the granddaddy of the best of). It was a huge hit.
I never once thought about potential problems making a mix because I was never in the pirating business. I would use my twin tape deck and make mixes for my own use but heck, I had already purchased the music so what’s the harm, right? Sure, I knew some friends who were into that and would try to sell their mixes but not me. My mixes were made for love, affection, or simply convenience.
I can’t download songs now even if I wanted to and couldn’t burn a CD without some serious help. My 10-year-old can but that’s another issue. There is nothing wrong with the mix tape or CD if you prefer, so long as you are paying for the music in the first place and not selling what you have composed in the second place.
August 10, 2007 at 7:54 pm |
Of course I remember the mixed tape and of course I mixed about a dozen of them back in the day. My very first creation consisted of me holding up my mom’s tape recorder to the wooden-framed television and recording such songs as Van Halen’s “Jump” and Herbie Hancock‘s “Rockit“. Hahaha…..1984 classmates (most of whom were infants at the time). Anyway, Mtv had just come out and I was thrilled to record the songs so I could roller-skate to them in the garage. I can only imagine the horrific sound quality of that historic tape as I enthusiastically skated in circles around the garage. As time went by and my skills advanced, I began recording songs from my portable radio, a/k/a “Boom Box” and songs from albums and other cassettes. It was never my intent to seal a love deal with a mixed tape nor did anyone ever make me one. Boo.
. Knowing myself, I would of never understood the affectionate gesture of a gifted mixed tape anyway. Rather, my main purposes were to listen to the songs in my bedroom while dancing or to share the listening experience with close friends while walking down the sidewalk with the boom box or sitting out in the driveway looking really cool. Did it ever occur to me that I may have been committing copyright infringement? Of course not! These songs belonged to me, they were recorded from MY merchandise and besides, I never sold them or distributed them to anyone.
Just for kicks and giggles, I decided to view a “Jump” video on youtube.com, upon writing this. Good Lord, I could not make myself sit through the entire thing. Hilarious; it is listed under the category of comedy .
August 13, 2007 at 12:55 pm |
I do remember my first mix tape. I had received a “boom box” for Christmas that had a tape player. Unfortunately, I had no store bought tapes to play. So I stole one of my brother’s blank tapes and recorded songs off the radio. My favorite song at the time was Juke Box Hero by Foreigner. I waited all day for the station to play this song. This was when I realized I hated disc jockeys talking over songs! At the time I did not even contemplate the legalities of my recordings. Hey, air was free and the songs were being played over free air, right? Well, after Napster, I began to think about the implications of copying recorded music. Musicians are not only artists, they are business people. They sell their music to make money. This is their livlihood. When someone takes their music without paying, they are taking money away from the artist. Who wants to steal money from 50 Cent? NOT me!! So, I no longer copy music from the radio (radio, what is that?) and I purchase all my iPod songs from the iTunes. $0.99 for a song is not too bad. When you add it up, it is the same cost as an entire album. The next question is, will this put the music stores out of business?
August 18, 2007 at 8:04 pm |
I have made plenty of mix tapes. I made them for myself for fun when I was a lot younger. Workout tapes of classic rock or metal or whatever.
I think that making a mix tape should be ok, as long as you purchased the copyrighted material on one medium, and are transferring it to a different medium for your own personal use. That doesn’t sound like copyright infringement as long as you are not affecting the market by doing so. It sounds almost like a fair use from what I remember. Although, the FBI warnings on DVD’s prohibit any and all copying from DVD to another medium like another DVD or VHS, so that makes me wonder about CD to audio tape or vice versa. Of course, when you copy a DVD that someone else has created and you put it onto another medium, you are only transferring something that someone else has already done. You are not making any changes. You are not creating anything new. Perhaps this applies to a song if you only transfer one song from one medium to another.
One thing I do remember, when you are making a mix tape you are creating something that now has a life of its own. While copying one song from what you purchased to some other medium might be copyright infringement, copying a collection of songs that one chooses is like creating something. It is for this reason that I think it is not copyright infringement to create a mix tape-provided that you are not affecting the market by doing so. That is what I think.
This comment is from DILLON SMITH.
August 20, 2007 at 2:25 am |
My earliest memories of mix tapes are form when I was about 7 or 8. At that time my older brother would make them and listen to them on his radio, I of course tried to make my own mix tapes. Having no money or access to my brother’s tapes, I would tape songs off the radio but always seemed to miss the beginning of songs. I don’t remember listening to specific songs until I was in middle school and started buying CDs for my newly acquired CD player. I never made any mix tapes of my CDs, I guess the part of me that always needs to be on the cutting edge of technology had already developed and would not let me listen to lower quality audio.
My first real “mix-tape” was not until 1997 or 1998, when I bought my first MP3 player (aka RIO) with a staggering 32MB or memory. The challenge was to fit more than 30 minutes of CD quality sound on RIO. This was before Napster and you still needed to have a physical copy of the music you wanted to rip and I would always be faced with the choice of ~8 songs at CD quality or ~20 at half CD quality. I would always agonize about what songs I wanted to listen to for the next week or so, I was never motivated enough to update the songs on a daily basis.
Based on what I know from common knowledge, I believe that until this point in my story, I was not in violation of any copy write laws because I owned a copy of the music that I was putting on my computer and RIO. However, after Napster when you could download music that you may not have purchased for yourself, I’m pretty sure that the opposite was true. As time went on, I started to burn my own data CDs full of MP3s, for use in my car stereo. The problem that I always faced with making my own playlists/CDs is that I would memorize the order of the songs, regardless of the length of the playlist. I guess I reject the concept of music sounding better if arranged in a certain order, I find it annoying that I would hear a song on one of my playlists and at the end of the song instinctively know what song should follow. I should point out that I had the same problem with CDs, nowadays, I almost always us the random play feature to prevent myself from memorizing a particular playlist.
Regards,
Mark Rubio
August 20, 2007 at 3:34 am |
I am definitely familiar with Mix tapes/CDs, and I must admit that not too long, I frequently created them. In college my friends and I often made the forty-five minute journey to Nogales, Sonora, Mexico to attend nightclubs and bars. As it does for many under-21 students in the Southwest, Mexico provided us with a place to drink and socialize without the hassles of fake-IDs and expensive cover charges. Before making these trips I occasionally prepared a CD of the latest “hot tracks.” These CDs served as a soundtrack to our adventure, and rid us of the annoying ads that infest radio. Now they serve as nostalgic relics to a time free from Honor Codes, Bar Applications, and Anonymous numbers. Since turning twenty-one, and since moving across the country, my Mexico-inspired compilations have ceased. The iPod as a mega-mix tape, later substituted my need to make mix-tapes.
Additionally, my academic experience with Copyright law has changed my perspective on legality of mix tapes/CDs. Courses such as Intellectual Property, Entertainment Law, and Music Publishing, expanded my understanding of Copyrights and Copyright infringement. Today, I no longer view mix tapes as innocent compilations of music (that I already owned).
Creating a mix tape/CD violates the Copyrights Act. By simply creating a mix tape, a person engages in an unauthorized mechanical reproduction of a copyrighted work. Reproduction is among one of the exclusive “bundle of rights” guaranteed to the holder of Copyright. Though the market effect of that single CD is minimal, when taken in the aggregate, unauthorized reproductions of musical compositions have devastating effects on the music industry.
Salam Tekbali
August 21, 2007 at 2:11 am |
The concept of a mix tape truly turns on the aspect or definition of theft. This is not to say that creating a mix tape or its descendants constitutes stealing but it is a consideration when framing individual ideas regarding the concept.
The current generation is jaded by the Napster revolution and iPod technology. It appears that the i-generation operates on a platform of entitlement. Music, movies, games, programs, etc. are great to own if you can afford the retail price but substantially better if you have a fast connection and some form of shareware. Most people would qualify the “theft” of their favorite multi-media divergence on the price tag or the quality. The price may be an availing argument. Further, the technology that industry loathes in the same technology used to make individual, purchased, downloads possible. It is a vicious cycle of hypocrisy.
About a decade ago, CD’s were about $15-$20. You were able to hear maybe 10 of your favorite band’s songs. If this was a new or unproven collection of songs, the potential was a $20 blackhole of junk. Now, CD’s have fallen in price to $10-$15. It appears that there is a correlation between easily downloaded music and retail price. So, the theft of music may have led to consumer protection from horrible music. Further, the downloading of music has allowed listeners to peruse music and artists that were not worth the risk of $20. The music ability to download music has also forced musicians and labels to be accountable for their product. If a band makes one great hit and surrounds it by nine filler songs, then the consumer is right to download that one song. Downloading music may be stealing by definition and perception but it has benefits to the artists and the thieves.
The distribution of material to friends or family is not inherently evil and will not destroy the billion dollar entertainment industry. There is nothing wrong with showing your devotion to a band by creating a personal list of greatest hits. If you do not, the band will and will fail to ask you for input…but they will ask for $20 to hear a collection of songs you already own, scattered throughout your own library of CD’s. If you are not obtaining profit from the endeavor then the individual should be allowed to disseminate the information. If the material is obtained “legally” then the person has a license to utilize the object. Why should the consumer be restricted when the intention is noble or not so noble (in the case of the mixtape)?
I do not want to give the impression of a cavalier disrespect for the law or the rights of the owner of copyrighted material. The person(s) that creates the material should be allowed to protect the information or final product. However, the consumer should be allowed to protect his own interest in purchasing these products. A person can hold a mop at Home Depot before taking it home…A person cannot view a movie before sitting through a $10 movie that lasted four hours (previews do not count, they are a product in and of themselves). The consumer deserves some protection from purchasing garbage.
The issue appears to be framed in the rich and famous v. the high school student. Metallica wants to sue a kid because he did not want to purchase Kill Em All for $15 when it was originally produced in 1985. This is occurring simultaneously as an underground band from East Orlando is being discovered from a random download and appreciates the new fan. Downloading information and the entire catalog of copying technology has empowered the individual to decide what they want from a product. If Spielberg, Lucas and others can reedit and release classics, then kids can create mixtapes and sample songs for mixes. The artist is still receiving credit. A clip show of Spielberg movies is still of Spielberg movies. He just did not receive compensation.
Jonathon Blevins
August 21, 2007 at 5:58 am |
As much as I hate to admit it, I am familiar with the mix tape. However, I never did use one for romantic purposes though. I guess I never really dug the idea of expressing my “feelings” towards someone in that way. When I did make them it was always for personal use, because I would buy a album and out of 10 – 15 songs on it , and I would only really llike just 2 or 3 songs. So I would make a tape with only the songs that I liked on it. As a young teenager, I remember thinking that the artists were purposefully ripping off the public, because they would force you to pay for a whole album but then only give you a couple of good songs. Heck, at one point I really quit buying that much music, because I could always find somebody who already had a song on tape or vinyl and was willing to let me make a copy for free. Most of my tapes would be a smogasborg of genres, so I would have like the Gap Band (“you dropped the bomb on me baby…”), followed by Culture Club, followed by the Police or Bob (Marley) – hey it was the 80’s, ok?! Although I don’t have a specific highly memorable mix tape story, I do seem to remember that most of my created cassette tapes had very short life spans. Either the tape deck would chew them up, or they would suddenly vanish, get misplaced, somebody would “borrow” them, or that little spongy thing on the bottom (that I guess cleaned, steadied and guided the tapes?), would fall out of the cassette, thereby causing the tape to go bad even quicker. Back then, the thought that I might have been violating copyright laws or possibly ripping off artists, never even crossed my mind – not even once. After CD’s came along, I did make a handful of mix CD’s, but as a general rule I never dub anything anymore – that’s partly because I’m acutely aware that I might be violating some copyright law, but mostly because I’m simply not much into the stuff that’s being put out nowadays.
Rob Pollidore
August 21, 2007 at 2:34 pm |
I am definitely guilty as charged when it comes to having made a “mix tape” and it’s more recent counterpart the “mix CD.” Although, I can definitively say that I never used any of my creations as “love letters.” Part of the reason for this is probably because when the mix tape craze was going on, I was like five years old. As far as both my tape and CD mix collection goes, they were all for personal use – usually because I would like a song by a particular artist, but not necessary like their other songs enough that I would go out and purchase the entire album.
As far as copyright implications go, I will have to plead the fifth… I confess that I was a Napster user, along with the several other programs that followed in the wake of its legal troubles. I think mix tapes and mix CDs are a funny sort of thing in the realm of copyright law. Back in the day when I made mix tapes, I recorded them off the radio. I literally sat there and waited for a song I liked to come on and then pressed record. (I can say this and not sound like a total loser because I was in elementary school). Taking a song that was broadcast over the radio, free for everyone to listen to and enjoy is not as disturbing to me as taking songs off of those file-sharing networks. Either way, I know now that those radio stations have a license to do that and I did not have a license to sit there and record it. Things get much more problematic when you have people who are creating their own mixes and then selling it and distributing it. For the most part, an artist with copyrighted material, holds the right to distribute it – not some kid down the street.
What really gets interesting – and we touched on this in Entertainment law – is what a person is adding when they create their own mix. Now, recording songs off the radio doesn’t really fall into this category, because there is no say in the order they were aired. But, when someone sits there and decides on a genre or a particular message they want to convey and specifically picks songs and puts them in a particular order, then essentially there is a new creation. I think it boils down to this: if you made a mix tape or CD with songs that had no copyright or were songs with which you had a license to use, your creation would be copyrightable; if you made a mix with songs with a copyright, which you had no license or authority to use, it would be an infringement. I think most of us would fall into this latter category. And then there’s always the question of fair use, but I will save that for a later post…
Gail Benson
August 21, 2007 at 5:13 pm |
I bought a bootleg DVD from a guy on the street of a movie that screenplay was based on a novel by Nick Hornby entitled “High Fidelity”. The entire movie is basically the same old song and dance of guy-gets girl, guy loses girl, guy makes mixed tape to get girl back, guy realizes that making mixed tapes are what got him to lose girl in first place, guy gets girl back and vows to make no mote mixed tapes. Great Movie, better book, shitty quality DVD (i think someone brought a video camera into the theater to record the film)
I have made, received, thrown out plenty of mixed tapes in my day and I will continue to do so. The think about a mixed tape is that it is difficult to carry the whole tape to a defining crescendo without making it too sappy or too lame. The copyright was always the least of my worries. I could care less about some record company which tried to charge me twenty dollars for a disc when it takes them ten cents to make. And don’t get me started on how the actual musicians get screwed by the bastard record executives. Even terrestrial radio/media is dominated by airplay of a few artist that some big-wig at Clearcannel or BMG or MTV wants consumers to buy so they can make huge profits.
The mixed tape arose out of desperation of music lovers who did not want to always buy an album of shitty tracks and only wanted the song that they connected with. Then they wanted free music because it was high time that those same record producing bastards pay me back for all the money I had to dole out in my adolescence to buy an album fool of crap for my one song.
If anyone needs to learn how to download music over the internet without getting viruses or spyware let me know. I will introduce you to a better way to make a mixed tape that does not include the likes of limewire or itunes or any other site that lines the record industries pockets.
-Jason Feldman
August 21, 2007 at 6:16 pm |
I may be one of the few people to have recently made a mix tape. Two years ago the radio station I worked for would host monthly hip hop shows where bboy battles were on display and various acts would come perform. The Djs on my radio show decided to record our live shows and then mix and match various segments of them on tape, in order to raffle off at the shows. So I found myself in a gigantic state of the art studio, using the rawest and most primitive equipment available, the tape recorder.
An argument can be made that we were using the artists music and profiting off of it, and therefore it was a form of copyright infringment, but because the original live air broadcasts were created by us, and the final mix tape was a product of our creative mixing and matching, we were not infringing on another’s work. As Gail said we were making a new creation, and we were actually breathing life into our own collection of music through blending and scratching and recording all in the fixed tangible medium of a cassette tape.
Because our mix tapes were created from pre-existing copyrighted materials, they were derivative works. And instead of infringing on a copyright we created our own copyright in the mixes that we put together. This is because we expended effort in collecting and compiling the music, we decided which parts of the complied music were going to be included, and we decided on the order in which to play the songs. This more than likely gave us original authorship and our very own copyright.
-Carlos Gonzalez
August 21, 2007 at 6:49 pm |
It was the summer of 1988, I was eight years old and at my family’s house in Northern NJ and extremely bored. Going outside for a bike ride or shooting some hoops in the driveway was out of the question due to the humidity/heat. Watching some T.V. was also not a viable option because being the youngest of three children I rarely got to watch what I wanted. We didn’t own a Nintendo so I couldn’t spend countless hours playing Super Mario Bros. With both of my parents working and neither of my older siblings of driving age, I needed something to fill the void. My escape was listening to the radio or mix tapes on my Sony Walkman Cassette player. I had received it the year before for my birthday. It was the standard issue no frills Sony Walkman powered by two AA batteries. It had the manual dial radio control and all the usual buttons except a rewind button. If I wanted to rewind a tape, I would eject the tape, flip it over and press the fast forward button, then re-eject it and re-flip it, and finally play it.
I had two different kinds of mixed tapes. The first being the kind recorded off of the radio, and the second were made from borrowing tapes from friends, and dubbing them. The second kind were far superior in quality because you did not have the crackle or static from the radio, or the radio station commercials, or even songs I recorded half way through. You might ask, what was a young Pesh listening to? My mixed tapes consisted of songs by George Harrison, UB40, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Michael Jackson (before he got scary looking), Def Leppard, and of course Bon Jovi and Bruce Springsteen.
Do my two different kinds of mixed tapes have different copyright implications? I believe so. I believe that the mix tapes I made from radio recordings should not have any copyright implications, because they were aired on a national radio station, and freely accessible to anyone who happened to have a blank tape in the recorder at the time the song played. I do believe that my second variety of mixed tapes would have copyright implications because even though my friends had purchased a licensed copy of the original work, I borrowed it and made an unauthorized copy for my personal use.
Nilpesh Amin
August 21, 2007 at 8:31 pm |
I’m sure that, back in the day, I recorded music off the radio occassionally. And I did have a friend or two with CD burners back in high school. But I was truly introduced to the concept of music (or file) sharing as a freshman in college. I had my own computer for the first time. There were probably 200 students at my college and we were all connected to the school network. At that time, no one bothered to put passwords or firewalls up to block access. Some students actually copied CD’s, but most downloaded music from Napster. Others, like me, simply copied and pasted music files from the network. So my first experience actually putting together a mix CD came from taking my favorite songs that I had taken off the network and burning them on to CD’s. This was obviously before file sharing sites like Napster were attacked by the likes of Metallica. But even then, I thought music sharing was of dubious legality. Back in high school, I never had my friends copy and burn CD’s for me because it always struck me as being in violation of copyright laws. I think I did let my friends borrow my CD’s and copy them – somehow that seemed better. I had paid for the CD’s after all. By high school, I think I realized that copyright laws extended beyond taking credit for work done by others (the whole Vanilla Ice/Queen thing left a big impression on me) and covered the unauthorized reproduction of things like CD’s or movies. (Though, I think I used to believe such reproductions were ok so long as they weren’t done for profit. In other words, my high school friends could copy a CD for me without breaking the law, but if they charged me $10 to do so, they were breaking the law.)
Tara Warrington
August 21, 2007 at 9:51 pm |
Yes, I have made a mixed tape, and no, I didn’t feel like a thief. I did the same thing as Ms. Benson and listened to the radio until a good song came on and then I hit record. I feel so old and out dated just thinking about it. I don’t feel like recording a song off the radio makes me a bad person, but I do have different feelings toward file sharing. Free music sounds good, but realistically it’s ripping the artist off. I would be pissed if my music were being stolen and passed around for everyone to hear (just for the record I have never made any music, I have no talent whatsoever).
I think the only reason why I didn’t feel guilty about “tape making” is because my intentions seemed so innocent. I was young and their seemed to be no volatile implications. File sharing is known for its cheap accessibility and illegal tactics. There is no “innocence” in it; it’s copyright infringement. If there were would it make it right? Probably not, but I sleep fine at night anyways. In all honesty I never participated in the Napster craze. Not because I it was illegal, but because I wasn’t cool enough. I just didn’t care and was too lazy.
Stephanie Canglin
August 21, 2007 at 9:56 pm |
The Mixtape.
I think the mixtape is best thing since slice bread. I have made mix tapes putting together songs from different artists, to suit different moods and occasions and it’s the one of the greatest concepts.. These days cd’s only have one or two good songs, so the mixtape can at least give/save you the extra space to bring a million cds in your car on a trip or where ever your going. Also the business is good because it lets you here artists you may not give a chance when thinking of buying it in the store. So when u hear it on a mixtape you can make your decision. Some artists are only good mixtape artists so it allows the person to fit in his nitch. The artistry of some mix tape makers are also different that albums. They give a LIVE feel to it, Cd albums don’t often do. I think political views can be expressed through mix tapes because of its informality. I think it’s a good way for artists to spread their fan base and have more creative freedom the big companies wont lose money because if an artists is really liked, the album will sell. The concept of individually making mix tapes give the consumer more freedom to hear what he likes and is cost efficient. I’ve made mixes for myself, family and friends, who don’t know music well enough to purchase what they want and to even sold mix tapes for my music career and band etc. It’s needed, for without it the music industry would suffer especially hip hop, reggae and R &B.
The implications of me creating mix tapes may have been the rights that the record companies and cd manufacturer have over the music I compiled. The artists also does not get to benefit from me creating cd’s especially if I make copies because other people would not buy the cd’s if there have someone supplying them the same music. That’s the biggest concern I see..
Jason Richards
August 21, 2007 at 10:16 pm |
I have never personally created a mix tape. However, I do not see an issue with creating one solely for private use. I do feel that commercial use of such a mix tape would constitute a copyright violation if done without permission of copyrighted works such as the case with Thurston Moore. Thurston Moore stated, “We would have it onstage with us when we played, and I would mic it through the PA for between-song tape action.” Moore’s actions, pursuant to current copyright laws, would constitute a violation. Because Moore was in the midst of a concert and was playing the works of others over the PA during set breaks which were copyrightable as being original and produced on a fixed tangible medium, his actions are a violation of copyright law. The fair use doctrine would not work in this particular instance because Moore did not create a parody with the works. Moore was simply using the works, as they were originally created, in a venue in which he was being paid to perform. Furthermore since it was not implied that he had permission to use the said works, a copyright violation would exist.
As long as there is no commercial use or intent to commercially benefit from the creation of the mix tape and the use is solely private I do not think there is an issue regarding copyright due most likely to the fair use doctrine regarding private enjoyment. Realistically there would not be much of an impact upon the rights of the author when one is only using their works for private enjoyment within their own homes.
~ Justin Schafer
August 23, 2007 at 2:54 pm |
I was a HUGE mix tape maker – my friends and I used to hang out and just sit around listening to the radio and taping songs. Back then, obviously, you didn’t think anything of it. Now, once I got to college, that was something different… I wasn’t as technologically savvy as a lot of my friends were at the time. It was my first computer that I didn’t have to share with my family, so I was just learning how to do all the cool things with it. That’s when I first learned about burning CD’s and file sharing, things like that, and honestly, I did both. My friends set everything up for me, all I had to do was click a button and I got music to my hearts content. I’m sorry, but my opinion at the time was, anything that can provide New Kids on the Block songs from my childhood was ok with me. Then when all the Napster stuff went down, I’m not going to lie, I got freaked out that I was going to get kicked out of college (because that’s of course what they threatened us with), so I stopped messing with the filing sharing thing for awhile.
Anyway, the point is that you really didn’t know any better – who knew that kind of stuff was copyright infringement? But I guess if you really think about it, it’s common sense, that if something was once sold and now you’re getting it for free, someone is getting screwed over – you just didn’t care because you were the poor college student and they were the millionaire recording artist.
I can obviously see the issue with the situation now. But to be honest, the way I figured it, and maybe this was just my delusional thinking used to rationalize my theft on the daily basis; the stereo company put a “record” button on the tape deck, the computer company put and extra disc drive in my computer to burn CD’s, Napster effected every college campus across the country and it’s predecessors still do… Looking at things like that, how was the technologically challenged general public supposed to know what they were doing was wrong? Now on the opposite side of the spectrum, I’m not going to go all Metallica on the frat houses of the U.S. or anything, but it’s true, you ARE stealing, plain and simple.
Kimberly Harchuck
August 23, 2007 at 2:59 pm |
I dont remember having ever made a mix tape, I did however partake in making several mix cds. This was back in the good ole days of napster etc, when we all openly violated copyright laws. I think that as long as the music is for personal use, there shouldnt be any problem downloading it or mixing your own tape. There have been plenty of bands over the years who have benefited from mix tapes or even bootleg tapes, namely the Grateful Dead, and more recently the Dave Matthews Band. There needs to be a delicate balance in what is an essentially harmless practice of making mix tapes, and the potentially economically harmful problem of music sharing etc.