Why would this appeal to existing fans only? What about new fans? I guess that as humour, satire and parody are lost on these people then internet marketing might as well be too.
In many ways I like the term "mashup". It's playful, easy to say and not tied down to a particular practice (although it has its origins in music remixing so that other forms are usually prefaced e.g. Video Mashup).
However, I really hate that it implies a lack of finesse... a sort of trivial abandon which restricts it to being entertainment for passive consumption at best. It really does a disservice to a great deal of truly incredible remixing (of all kinds) that exists out there. Of course, there are plenty haphazard "mashups" but, then again, the existence of sloppy notebook doodles does not invalidate Van Gough so why should the same be true here? The term mashup was never intended to have a value judgement attached to it, just like "fan works" wasn't... but that doesn't change some perceptions.
To me, it's the same kind of cultural/generational snobbery that denounced Rock 'n' Roll. Andrew Keen's Cult of the Amateur is just one example of this mistaken assumption - the assumption that radical new and decentralised art has little or nothing to offer. Most surprising to me is how this is exactly the same argument made of so many artforms over the years. Court poetry that isn't in Latin, inconceivable! A player writing plays, outrageous! Moving pictures? Nothing but silly watering-hose jokes. Well, if history really is repeating itself then I hope it's time for a decentralised digital renaissance.
Many participatory cultures are reclusive and insular. I suppose the very idea of finding a common identity creates a defining boundary that excludes those outside that identity. Equally, some cultures are more accessible by mainstream audiences than others. I find this particularly interesting when separate cultures or communities who essentially do the same thing don't have much knowledge of the other. AMVs, vidding and the new propensity for video mashups on youtube all share the same techniques and yet there are very few creators how affiliate themself with or create works within more than one community. Video footage is edited and placed to audio and yet that is not *why* they create what they do. If they were interested in the hobby for its techniques then there would be a lot more cross-pollination. Instead, the creators in these communities are mostly interested in their own audiences and working within a predefined culture. As a result, they often fail to influence one another creatively.
This can lead to an entirely innocent ignorance of what the other is doing and while press and academia will often categorise them equally there are huge differences between these different fan participations. As such, it's no surprise when someone from one of these clearly defined areas creates something commonly made in a different community they don't know how to define it.
For example, this cutup as advertised in the Vidding livejournal community is one of many of its kind. Colbert famously encouraged his audience to mashup his work and this is a good example of it. This is not, however, part of the vidding culture even if it is part of the vidding technique. It seems that participatory cultures are separated by a common language. You can debate amongst yourselves whether this is a good or a bad thing.
This site aims to discuss derivative art - in whatever form it may be. Today, I'm going to talk about possibly the worst kind of derivative work: Plagiarism for Profit.
Anyone who frequents webcomics (and particularly the blogs of web comic artists) will by now know the name Todd Goldman. To me, it is crystal clear that this man shamelessly plagiarises other people's work without any form of credit and then profits with little or no intervention. There is no doubt in my mind.
Generally I sing the praises of derivative art, but there is a huge, inescapable chasm between Todd Goldman's rip-offs and the inspired art, videos and fiction that fans slave over daily. In fact, I think it's worth a quick gloat - there is more creativity, more individuality and more orginiality in a single mashup than there is in a hundred of Todd's poorly-rendered copycat t-shirts.
This is the kind of copyright infringement that needs careful but clear litigation. Far too much time has been spent thinking up new ways to stop people creating not-for-profit socially-shared free advertising with modern media (personalising and communicating their experiences using clearly-attributed cropyrighted works) and not enough time has been spent defending personal creativity against the kind of legal bullying that Goldman is attempting in order to keep his outright theivery profitable.
Wherever you fall on the issue of fair use rights for people to reuse what they consume, it is hard to accept that someone should have the right to sell someone elses work as their own. If that very basic principle of copyright cannot be protected then the whole system is at fault.
I find the press response to the "obliteration" of this Banksy work to be hugely encouraging. The removal of this work is a loss and I'm glad to see that the press are acknowledging that a technically illegal act has validity and worth.
The more Banksy becomes accepted as a valuable derivative artist, valuable enough to make people think twice about the criminality of vandalism, the more hope there is for other derivative works to gain acceptance and in turn for their criminality to be re-considered.
In many ways Banksy is an easy sell - it's art in a way that is an extension of many other well-regarded artists that came before. Mashups too are a natural extension of sampling and remixing. Machinima is trying a number of different angles, the one gaining the most mainstream acceptance being the use of computer game animation as the traditional animation with all the genres that implies. Derivative video works have a more problematic media tradition. The easiest sell at the moment is the video parody (trailer, political etc) which continues a strong tradition of spoofs in television and cinema. Re-narrativising through music videos, however, is more problematic. It's going to take longer to sell music video derivations to critics and the public as it doesn't naturally extend a kind of mass-consumed media - the similarities of derivative fan music videos to commerical music videos are few, despite attempts by studios to encourage this kind of user generated content.
