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As mentioned earlier enjoying music means different things to different people. However, you will find that it is almost consumed while doing something at the same time. Be it dancing, cleaning, working, driving or creating a derivative work. Creating something of your own. A sum of all the parts that make you whole. Today, some artists, such as Girl Talk, create mash-up style tracks almost entirely made out of samples and others such as Rhymefest make it a conversation with and a dedication to other artists.

Dedication or not; with all the litigation going on in regards to copyright and the lack of clarity if you purchased the music or the physical medium, how does one determine if someone has the right to sample or create derivative works. Cover songs are pretty well covered, but what about sampling?

Sampling has been around for a long time, but with todays technology and ability of creating digital copies; it is even easier then ever. Girl Talk uses software, such as AudioMulch to whip a new track. To get an idea as to how this is done, see the following video clip, where he takes "Radio Radio" by Elvis Costello And The Attractions and mixes it with an A capella by Ce Ce Peniston of "Finally".

Next, is the natural desire to want to distribute this derivative work for others to enjoy. But how does that work into todays copyright? It seems a bit unclear, especially if someone is charging for this, however, this will be a battle to be resolved in the next few years. Two recent documentaries, Good Copy, Bad Copy and RiP: A Remix Manifesto discuss some the view points and issues related to sampling and remixing of content.

At the excellent SanFran MusicTech Summit in February 2008, John Perry Barlow of the Grateful Dead and the Electronic Frontier Foundation talked about his take on all this and expressed that he felt that "Art is a verb, not a noun" and that it was all about the experience of creation and connecting with the fans. That any derivative work is merely an "artifact", a keep sake, as you will.

This clearly is a perspective where music becomes more of a service and an experience and less of a product. I find it refreshing and see it analogous to wanting to own a digital image, print or original work of an artist. Why differentiate between originals and derivatives? Why not have different pricing based on the experience where we use digital copies in a similar vein to how we have shared mixed tapes with friends in the past?

Mix it up!

As we get into political debates between the candidates for the white house, it is pretty clear that the keyword these days is change. I do not think it stops there though. Change is afoot everywhere and with the current economic crisis this is only accelerating things, by having people looking at other ways to accomplish their tasks. Either for less, in a more green way or in whatever way is most important to them.

For musicians, artists and the music industry as a whole, change is on the forefront as well. First with iTunes and the iPod, now with things like Spotify, we are moving to a more connected world. Where it used to be about the actual songs themselves, it is much more around the experience created by it and its associations, be it cover art, videos, blogs or even interviews. Even the ability to interact with the music, such as Splice, Remix.nin.com, CcMixter and even with video this is more becoming the case, where I think things like the features of Eyespot are becoming standard must haves for sites. We are very much a remix culture these days.

It is one of the reasons, why I am still confused as to why some people are still holding on to the past and saying sampling is not allowed. People are still trying hash out out how this all fits in the world of mash ups and the general derivative culture.

The way people are being entertained is changing, in addition to how people consume media. Although there are still a lot of people playing music using acoustic instruments, but just as recording of those tracks has gone digital. So have most of todays instruments. Sometimes, they do not even really look like instruments any more. The big question is always, if we do not make money off our songs, then how? Some say concerts and performances, but even how that is done is changing.

DJs for example are still in love with the way vinyl works, but having waveforms that represent the grooves is providing most of what they are used to and tons more real-time control that was never possible with vinyl. Some forward thinking DJs have started taking advantage of this, such as DJ Sasha. Below find an interesting video where internationally respected DJ and musician, Richie Hawtin, talks about his current DJ setup and how it has changed what he focuses on during a set and how it is much more about creating mood and his interaction with the fans on stage over the age old beat matching.

Overall it is very exciting to me how technology is turning the world upside down and making it easier for us to communicate, share and entertain. There will be a lot of trial and error, but in the end I think we will be a better world because of it.

Change is a good thing, even if what is changing is change itself.

If you haven't heard about SoundCloud, you will very soon. It has been described as the Flickr for professional musicians, or a Yousentit replacement, but actually it is much more than that. It is an easy way to digest and share new tracks with others, unlike how Splice has and is more focused on mashups of complete tracks. You could almost say that SoundCloud has analogies to Twitter, with the way the dropbox and your soundcloud inbox works.

Although, you could use it for partial tracks, as it provides you ways to privately share the original recordings. I do not see it provide the VST or ProTools/Logic settings to go with it. I find that to be the main issue with all these online collaborative services. I tend to do most of my work on my DAW and therefore making it hard to share with others unless hey have similar software that understands the configuration files. Otherwise we could spend hours tweaking configuration settings until everything is linked and buttoned up. Doing this without a settings template can be a real pain.

I find BoJam lacking in the same way. It is nice to have a way to see a video clip of the person I am jamming with, but how about exporting all his tweaks and adjustments in a format that I can easily integrate with modern DAWs. Most studios are not directly connected to the internet anyways, and I do not expect them to be. These computers are setup with a specific purpose in mind and have specific I/O points that are strictly monitored for security among other reasons.

I do find the SoundCloud interface pretty slick and I especially like the waveform with annotations. The first time I saw a waveform based audio player was with the launch of the bleep music store. It was an innovative concept then, and i still think it has a lot of merit today. More and more musicians are starting to get used to looking at their music in the digital domain as waveforms, FFTs, etc. It is a useful tool to be able to confirm what you thought your monitors were screaming about, by seeing a little blip show up on a frequency diagram.

Overall, I must say that SoundCloud is a welcome edition that is going to put pressure on others to improve the music creation and collaboration side of the business rather than the legally entangled delivery and licensing aspects.

Trent decided to launch the site anyways. See remix.nin.com. As described in the FAQon the site, every upload will be scanned for infringing material, as we originally did at MP3.com.

• Q: Why doesn't my uploaded remix show up on the site immediately?
• A: Unfortunately, we are at the mercy of frustrating record company legal politics, and must ensure that your mix does not include any unauthorized material - as defined in the next answer on this page - before it is approved for the site. Approving every mix is a tedious process, and we rely on the greatly-appreciated help of the site moderators to review submitted mixes. Because of this, it may take some time before your mix shows up on the site. You will receive an email when it becomes available - in the meantime, please be patient, and understand this isn't the way we'd run the site if we had a choice.
• Q: What kind of materials are not okay to include in my remix?
• A: Thanks to the record company copyright politics mentioned in the answer above, we must require that your mix does not contain ANY elements of copyrighted material, unless you yourself own the copyright (i.e. it's your own music). Your mix can include any element of any NIN song, or of other songs offered in multitrack format on this site. You can manipulate or destroy those pieces as much as you'd like, and you can combine them with your own original sounds and music. You CANNOT include samples of songs by other artists, or samples from movies, TV shows, or video games. Any remixes containing these elements will be rejected during the approval process. Please understand that it is not our wish to impose these restrictions on your creativity or the functionality of this site, but we have no choice in the matter.

It is unfortunate that you have to do this, especially since it is hard for individuals to know what is copyrighted material and what is in the public domain. It certainly seems to highlight that the DMCA is not the right answer here.

Trent Reznor explained earlier this week on the Nine Inch Nails blog how "safe harbor" under the DMCA is restricting them from launching a site where fans can upload their own mixes of Nine Inch Nails songs as Universal, owner of their master recordings, is afraid they may sponsor the same technical violation of copyright that they are suing Youtube and Myspace for. This is because the remixes may contain uncleared material, that Universal does not own, such as a mashup, sample or whatever.

This is a very interesting double-edged sword in regards to the DMCA. As during the early MP3.com days we had people sitting in a room listening to every track that was uploaded for copyright material, cover songs, etc. These days most companies rely on DMCA safe harbor to be re-active rather then pro-active at taking down content. It is really a shame that mashups and sampling are seen as such a liability. Rather than seeing it as a sign of appreciation and respect, we turn around and would sue the creator for a small piece of the action. I can see it to a certain degree, but clearing rights needs to be much much easier then it is now if we truly expect people to clear rights for things like a sample or mashup.