From what I'm gathering the reason that it's making a big deal now is the way hip hop people are using it. Some rapper chooses a instrumental track already made famous out publicly and uses it to promote his own talents. The problem with that is that the producer normally licenses his music for royalties and to make money. In street terms... "that's the way the music producer eats" Now if there were a group of people that made that song, i.e. guitarist, keyboardist, drummer... then whoever creates these mix tapes essentially is taking a profit from the creators. Now I agree with this because I produce music but only to a certain extent. See the mix tape (when it comes to hip hop) is solely meant to promote the "rapper/dj" skill set NOT the beat or music behind it. The music track is there strictly to get the listener to "feel" the rappers lyrics quicker because in most cases that instrumental music track is familiar or even better a hit on the radio already behind Kanye West, Jay-Z or a NAS lyric. As a music producer myself I have to say that as long as the artist/dj pays homage to the original creators somewhere on their product, whether in a lyric, or on the back cover then there is nothing wrong with it.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by ULOV.
Re: Why mix tapes are news now
From what I'm gathering the reason that it's making a big deal now is the way hip hop people are using it. Some rapper chooses a instrumental track already made famous out publicly and uses it to promote his own talents. The problem with that is that the producer normally licenses his music for royalties and to make money. In street terms... "that's the way the music producer eats" Now if there were a group of people that made that song, i.e. guitarist, keyboardist, drummer... then whoever creates these mix tapes essentially is taking a profit from the creators. Now I agree with this because I produce music but only to a certain extent. See the mix tape (when it comes to hip hop) is solely meant to promote the "rapper/dj" skill set NOT the beat or music behind it. The music track is there strictly to get the listener to "feel" the rappers lyrics quicker because in most cases that instrumental music track is familiar or even better a hit on the radio already behind Kanye West, Jay-Z or a NAS lyric. As a music producer myself I have to say that as long as the artist/dj pays homage to the original creators somewhere on their product, whether in a lyric, or on the back cover then there is nothing wrong with it.