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Written by Kyan 

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Mash -ups -cut ups- bottom upwards marketing- homemade ads

What's going on is a lot of people are making these (mash ups) and posting them up on the net making white labels of them c.d.'s etc, and radio stations such as ( XFM's The remix show) and TV shows (MTV mash) are playing them, which in turn brings them to the record companies attention who then ether nick the idea or license the tracks.

Officially, they (Record companies) for obvious reason's have to be seen to be against this whole trend and not encouraging it's continuation but unofficially they love it, free remix, free underground kudos for there artists, more exposure for there product etc. Now when a record comes out the acapella for it is on the net the same day
(uploaded by the artist or label or by a fan ) and is downloaded- traded by who ever wants a go at remixing the track. This in turn leads to loads of different vsn's of the same track being swapped about .

These records are starting to appear in the charts, performed on TV etc examples include:

  1. Linkin park vs jayz

  2. Kylie singing over New orders "blue Monday" at the Brits a few years ago.
    New order sampling kylie at the NME awards (mash up ping pong)

  3. Madonna singing over daft punk

  4. That really annoying Frog ring-tone remixed into a record (out now).

  5. Madonna and the gorillas at the Grammies

  6. mashing up software to make two programs work together.
    and countless other examples .

The same sort of thing is going on with adverts, people making there own home made ad's viral's and emailing them out posting them up for download, Recent examples are the suicide bomber VW ad and the Ipod ad both of which got loads of good & bad press & lot's of free exposure .

This trend is not going to go away, increasingly bottom upwards consumer homemade adverts are going to be the norm The 21st century is the cut n paste era mashing up the past and present to create the future William Burroughs got it right . (The cut up technique) People are doing this with fashion (graffitied trainers/homemade T-shirts) cars, computers, software, skateboards, movies you name it. A fan reedited Star wars Phantom menace and put it up on the net, vast numbers of Star wars fans preferred this vsn to George Lucas's. Their homes their bodies -tattoos cosmetic surgery- (check the rise of makeover D.i.Y programs) customized culture is the way people make a product personal to themselves. The potential is unlimited in terms of the freedom to be creative, and use anything you like to create something new.

The whole notion of copyright is going to have to flex and change somehow to reflect this. The concept of paying for music- software - films, for millions of people growing up now is a alien one. The idea that your not allowed to take something and change it without permission simply no longer exists. This sort of sampling cut up culture is not a new thing but the nature of it and the sheer number of people doing it is.

[This is written as a work-in-progress - with the eventual realisation that it could become a mashed up article its self, with additions from other writers and inclusion of content from many other sources. If you would like to get involved - please email for more information.]