Girl Talk Case

The Girl Talk case has a particularly interesting nature because of its ability to withstand lawsuits. We discussed in class how, with all the different sampling and use of popular mainstream music to create mashups, Girl Talk has yet to be sued. This brings up the issue of "fair use" and "transformative use", which is basically using just enough copyrighted material without infringing on the creators rights and transforming it into something new.After reviewing certain aspects of the case, and listening to the mashups, I fully believe that Girl Talk is within it’s rights to use the copyrighted material that it has in its works, simply because there is never a significant amount of the work being used, and he takes the work and completely turns it into something that it wasn’t before.

Also, I do agree with what we brought up in class when we talked about how some of the artists that had been sampled from can actually credit some of their popularity to Girl Talk’s mashups. He could essentially be giving these unknown artists free publicity because people start questioning who the original artist is, and how their music sounds.  

It is my opinion that, with the popularity of Girl Talk’s mashups as well as his recognition in magazines like The Rolling Stone, if he were truly infringing on anyone’s copyright and it was significant enough to be taken to court, he would have been already. I do not think the artists he samples from are unaware of their works being used, and because there is no copyright police, they would’ve taken him to court already.