Talking about Girls

First off, I'd like to preface this post with saying that I enjoy all of Girl Talk's music and have been listening to him for a couple of years now. I had never thought about all of the copyrighting laws that surround his art, but it definitely makes sense as to why he only releases his music online and for free.

I will continue by listing the definitions of two major factors associated with copyright laws:

Fair Use: "(in US copyright law) the doctrine that brief excerpts of copyright material may, under certain circumstances, be quoted verbatim for purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching, and research, without the need for permission from or payment to the copyright holder."

Transformative Use: "focuses on whether the new work merely supersedes the objects of the original creation, or whether and to what extent it is “transformative,” altering the original with new expression, meaning, or message."

In my opinion, "Girl Talk" is totally within his rights as an artist to transform these 10 second samples into his own songs, due to his goal not being to supersede the original creation. Due to his mixtapes being released online, such as the latest one entitled "All Day", he is not receiving royalties for these songs and has now paved the way for all other DJ's who want to do the same. I believe he is a true musician who puts more thought into his work than many other DJ's who are out trying to do the same thing.