Mashups – Media Tech Law

Fair Use or Just Plain Stealing? “Transformative” Art in a Digital World

Posted February 21, 2012 by Andrew Mirsky 0

A recent New York Times article discussed the case of an artist was sued for copyright infringement after he created paintings and collages based on photographs without crediting or obtaining permission from the photographer.

The artist, Richard Prince, based his works on photographs from a book about Rastafarians “to create the collages and a series of paintings based on [those photographs],” reported Randy Kennedy in the Times.

Then ensued a discussion of the degree to which material must be transformed to fall under copyright law’s “fair use” protection, which would allow use of copyrighted material if, as the article explains, “the new thing ‘adds value to the original’ so that society as a whole is culturally enriched by it.” (The reference is to a 1990 Harvard Law Review article by Federal Judge Pierre Leval. I previously discussed fair use’s 4-prong analysis in the context of photographs and artwork, here and in mashups here.)

Fair Use and Mashups

Posted December 12, 2010 by Andrew Mirsky 0

I was recently asked about “fair use” standards for use of copyrighted video or audio in mashups.

What’s a Mashup?

First: What are mashups? From WiseGeek:

A mash-up is a combination of tools or data from multiple sources. Mash-ups typically collect data from multiple web pages and bring their information into one simplified web application.

Mashups are common in the application development world, but also common in music and videos, and examples are legion (and some notorious). In particular, a music mashup is (according to Squidoo) …

when the vocals from one song are laid over the music of a second song to create a mashed up version that’s both but neither. If a good job is done, it enhances the original music.

Actually, the last part of that definition is most critical to a fair use analysis. I recently wrote about fair use in the context of the republishing of copyrighted photographs or artworks in a magazine, book or electronic publications.

MediaTech Law

By MIRSKY & COMPANY, PLLC

Fair Use and Mashups