When it comes to "Fair Use" of
copyrighted material, it is very limited to what you can legally do with the
material. You are only allowed to comment, criticize, or parody a piece of work
and is strictly limited to referencing a few quoted lines of a song,
summarizing an article, etc. Transformative use brings in the two following
questions: Is the material used from the original piece of work being transformed
by adding new meaning, and is value being added to the original piece of work
by creating new information, additions, etc.? So with Girl Talk and his music
the ultimate question asked in his case is he making the music that he is
sampling more valuable both intellectually and physically by featuring it in
his mixes? In my opinion he is not increasing the value of any of the songs
that he is featuring. He does this by only using snippets of songs, background
instrumental of the song that have been warped, as well as other special effects.
After listening to his songs personally it is almost hard to tell the origin of the
song or what the song is because he has mixed it in a way that does not
directly reveal the original piece of work. An example would be using some of
Taylor Swift lyrics sang, rapped, screamed, etc. in a different voice overplayed
on a club beat that has been fashioned out of several songs. So does this really
infringe on the copyright that music companies and artists have on their
material? It doesn’t because he doesn’t charge for his music and the core of
his music is different in such a way that he can and should be able to avoid
and criminal or civil suits.
