While reading Boing Boing I came across this amazing medley made up of 40+ Beatles songs. The creator has taken all these songs and slowed them down, sped them up, changed their pitch and other things and mashed them all together. The result is actually really cool and surprisingly catchy.
Go check it out; Boing Boing has a bunch of mirrors listed to download it from.
However, given the legal backlash against the Grey Album from DJ Danger Mouse which mixed the Beatles White Album and Jay-Z's Black Album, it is likely that this medley guy will probably get his pants sued off too. This is of course completely ridiculous because it is restricting creative works such as this. But of course copyright in these times has drifted so far from it's original purpose and it now simply serves to give control to big record companies and make them lots of money.
But regardless of the politics, this song is simply cool.
The medley is rather interesting. So is the idea of copyrighting. I agree that it has been taken to a new level with the dawn of the internet and downloading and such. It is horrible that music and art and innovation has been reduced completely to dollars and cents.
Of course, I understand the need to preserve the integrity of things through copyrighting (i.e. the extension of copyright laws to ensure the rights to Mickey Mouse remain within the Disney family, seeing as a free for all with Disney characters would not be pretty), however, would John Lennon not want people to be experimenting and creating?
The Beatles being one of the most influential bands ever, it would seem logical to me that they would encourage the use of their music to further the boundaries of music; simple common sense. Mind you, maybe I am just an idealist and in this day and age everything is only made up of dollars and cents.
This doesn't look like Geeklog
Why should Disney control Mickey Mouse forever. Furthermore, it's not even a family that's controlling it - it's a company. Their creations should go into the public domain after a time just like everything else. It is even more hypocritical on their part to push for copyright extensions because they rework a lot of old public domain stories for their own profit - Snow White, Cinderella, Aladdin, The Little Mermaid, etc.
It's ridiculous. Copyright should be a two-way street which strikes a balance between the owners and the customers and future content creators. However, now it is regarded simply as a vehicle to cater to the interests of the owners and it keeps going more and more in that direction.
The problem is only exasperated because of huge entertainment companies and lobby groups which get their way through huge legal budgets and market dominance.