You may recall our post from a while back about popular mashup artist Girl Talk, where we noted all the clearance and licensing hoops he’d have to jump through for his records to be 100 percent legal. Our takeaway? The current sample license clearance process is likely too time-consuming and cost-prohibitive for Girl Talk to make his art legit.
According to some press accounts, Girl Talk and his label, the aptly named Illegal Art, believe that his work is legal under the fair use principle — meaning, there’s exceptions within US copyright law that could protect him from being liable for infringement.
In the wake of major court rulings, there are those who have argued that current fair use exceptions aren’t enough to deal with the realities of our tech-driven, networked era. Some, in fact, suggest we need a legislative fix. read more
