Something is very much not right in the state of Denmark – well if Denmark was the state of mashups. Recent events have suggested that certain platforms will now welcome mashups, unofficial remixes, unlicensed DJ mixes, podcasts of commercial music and the like.
Apple made waves two weeks ago with such an idea of licensing streams of such content via Dubset on it’s Apple Music service. Now Soundcloud after partnering with Sony is premiering Soundcloud Go, a subscription model where unlicensed mashups and remixes can sit side by side with originals (I’ll believe that when I see it).
Mixmag: “Moving forward, SoundCloud will screen each remix and mix for licensed samples, and if any are detected, earnings will be split amongst copyright holders.”
Just one problem – have you noticed in all of these hyped up lazy press release rewrites there is no mention of paying the creator of the mashup or unnofficial remix? The DJ in common parlance, gets none? That they are supposed to feel all warm and glowing about the exposure, and that the carrot and stick approach has worked since not being taken down every 5 seconds is better than nothing (which is what you’ll get in fact)? And for even the independent artists creating those original works, there seems to be little to shout about like this open letter from Airplane Mode. With all these corporate artists getting paid and putting advertising on our work – when are we, the indie artists, the creators, the mashup artists, the upcoming DJs – getting any?
*Tumbleweed*
You see this is the new crowdsourced economy, they want you to work down Mashup Farm for free. It’s why I stopped making mashups and podcasts, it seemed to make everyone else rich except me. People used my mashups and videos for gigs, they even sold my mashups and used them on their radio shows as their own work. Because it’s ‘not mine’ apparently it has no value?
Well, the idea does have value: all those viral clicks and advertising and say, the pre-Duran Duran DJ who span Burn Yr Radio, they brought in the dollars? The records I sold – even official remixes and original work – have value (saw nothing of that, either). I never saw the money from that BRM remix, and she even repressed them into CDs they were such a ‘loss leader’ *cough* :-P. Never saw a penny from Acid Reign either and it made the Beatport charts so something must’ve sold. Fucking Cheek.
Exposure? Sorry exposure doesn’t pay the rent, let alone keep me in cracked copies of Serum (eh Kanye?). But it seems to make a lot of other people rich, who have their hand out way before mine, shouting louder with big lawyers and puppy dog eyes about ‘artists getting paid’ because Taylor Swift is so short of change – and all this means that my work is stolen from me. My transformative work, my ideas – they get tossed out into the trash. Hence why I give them away free…it’s easier and less depressing than the alternative, being ripped off AND paying for the privilege.
I would prefer in my romantic revolutionary mode not to be paid at all; I do think money corrupts the system. But love of something only goes so far, it doesn’t feed you. And it seems everyone else is having a pay day? That’s what rankles, the snorting from the feeding trough as I slowly starve. And to make things worse, such Cameron pigfuckery gets framed as being supporting the ickle artists, the poor starving artists…strange, I thought I was one of those? Ahh OK, you mean the poor ickle artists that are the granddaughters of Lord Teynham, the granddaughters of Sylvia Young, the Oxbridge and public school Mumford-a-likes, the floppy-haired Tarquins and the attitude star child Emilies?
But it seems increasingly only a few people ever get paid – the labels, the owners and promoters who promoted mashup nights and never paid the DJs (Bootie being the one exception in my DJ career) despite the massive bar take…the sanctioned artists whose face fit, the Eric Prydz get paid, not the Retarded Funks who created the actual track (Call On Me). Mylo gets paid, but funnily enough I think way more than Phil n’ Dog who actually created that International smash mashup (Dr Pressure). Mashup and bedroom remixers are the LAST to get paid in all these schemes, even when creating worldwide hits, and I’m fed up with it.
We are artists too, we are creators too – so why is the only way our work is legit is for other people to get rich off it and us staying poor? Unless you think the likes of Cassetteboy, ToTom, Dunproofin, Eclectic Method, Go Home Productions, DJ Schmolli, Loo & Placido, Ian Fondue/Fondue Meltdown, DJ Earworm et al have no skill and anyone can do it? For if you think that, try recreating one of their works. I think you might find it slightly difficult…but economies like Soundcloud NEED the new blood, which is weird how they are squeezing it out. I always say: go to Bandcamp. Go to services that will PAY you a fair share. Fuck labels, fuck collection agencies and lawyers that parasite on your ‘success’, fuck established artist ‘names’ who are busy pulling up the ladder.
‘I got mine’.
We need another way…maybe it’ll come from Bitcoin and blocks, Tor or the Dark Web, things like Zero.Net. I hope so – because this supposedly ‘happy paid’ Internet seems to have a hell of a lot of free content slaves to crowdsourcing and viral attention. It’s part of what I call the ‘Post Work Economy’…probably why having some sort of basic wage is probably a good thing, and soon. It’s everyone jumping up and down for their 15 seconds not realising that they are paying for that time, it’s on the clock. So I ain’t gonna work on Mashup Farm no more.
Image by Barnaby Kerr, Cropped. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
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