When Does a Remix Become an Original

[V___]

Usually, if I'm inspired to mix, Im grabbed by a 1-2 bar riff from a song. I'l take that and put it down, and improvise on the rest. Commonly I'l change the chord progression to suit my imrpovised ideas. Usually I screw with the rhythm of those 1-2 bars too. Its rare that I bring in the 2nd theme from the original, instead making one up that fits my mood.

So when Iv finished the 'mix', it has near the begining of the 'theme' something that vaguely resembles the start of the original song, and the rest is pretty much made up from scratch.

Personally, I start thinking 'yeh thats an original'; It has little taken from the original, not even the same chord progressions. However, the INTENTION was to make a remix, and I do use 6-8 notes in the same order as the source. So I'm conflicted as to wether I can call it my own work. Drawing a comparison to another artform, painters may draw inspiration from anothers painting, and then create their own works which has a similiar motif in pattern or colour. They may even sketch an object from the original and use it as a pivot in the artwork. But at what point can the original claim ownership of the inspired work?

[tekcoh_top]

i'm wondering the same thing...

[Dr. Rod]

As a philosopher (sort of), I believe thats like asking how many grains of sand does it take to make a heap (Sorites Paradox). 1 grain of sand clearly isnt a heap, 1,000,000 clearly is. But what lies between is purely subjective. Similarly, having 100% original content is clearly an original, having 0% clearly isnt. But where the line is drawn is completely subjective and thus unanswerable in objective terms.

As a remixer (hopeful), personally when I try and judge just how original a mix is, I try to remember the most notable parts. For instance, theres one Hydrocity mix on here that I liked mainly because it followed Hydrocity (one of my favorite sonic songs) very closely. The parts I liked were all straight out of hydrocity, so Id call that a pure remix. Another Hydrocity song had much more original sections I remembered just as much, if not more than, the Hydrocity sections. So thats a little more original. When I dont remember the source AT ALL and am instead ONLY drawn to only the original stuff, I'd call it an original.

[zircon]

Unfortunately, this is truly subjective. If this were put in front of a court, you would probably have musicologists listening and testifying. If you submit to OCR, you have us (musicians and listeners, but more or less "average people") evaluating it based on our thoughts. Either way, there's no set-in-stone rule. The best test is simply if you ask a group of random people, and see if they make the connection to the source material.

[Fishy]

There's a good quote to describe this, though I forget who said it:

The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.

[dannthr]

A remix becomes an original when you can't be sued for selling it.

[Sil]

Some good points raised, but a major factor is the title of the piece/song. If you call it something like "Final Fantasy Remix" and it contains a little snippit, even just a vague reference to some tune that is not your own, then it is copyright infringement. Call it something else; it becomes a matter of note similarity. If the note similarity is negotiable, then it should be your own.

eg. I arranged a tune from Star Ocean 2 some time ago and the only similarity it had to the original was 9 notes long, or about 4-5 seconds of material I transformed with some fancy classical-style counterpoint, among other things. I changed the style, instrumentation, key, tempo, flow, rhythms, added new melody lines, etc. Ultimately, I feel I’m safe in calling it my own (if I ever had to.)

[Fray]

In terms of litigation, I think your knowledge of the source can have a legit effect on the somewhat subjective decision of whether or not your piece is original. Basically it helps their case if they can prove that you used their song on purpose -- so if they could somehow show that it started out as a remix, it could help their case.

Bear in mind I'm basing this on a dumbed-down explanation I read in Confessions of a Record Producer; I'm by no means up on music law.

Of course that has no bearing on the philosophical question. Music law is pretty wacked out

As a remixer (hopeful)

While we're talking about philosophy, just because you don't have a remix on OCR doesn't mean you can't call yourself a remixer without qualifying it. The site's standards aren't meant to be a certification exam