Discovered Mash-ups

Been focusing on listening material lately, particularly podcasts, but I was surprised to discover mash-ups were openly available for downloading. For those not in the know, a mash-up as it pertains to music is a mix of two or more songs into one. The best mix songs of different genres into a new and enjoyable fusion. I have been a fan of mixed and fused genres, particularly rap-metal, since high school. Thus, mash-ups really appeal to me. Strangely, even though I've known about them for a while, I never bothered looking for them because I assumed copyright laws applied to them as strongly as to any other form of unauthorized music distribution. Mash-ups, however, fall into that nebulous realm of sampling, which has been performed without permission since the first DJ spun two turntables at the same time. Thus, they can be found all over the Internet from straight downloads to podcasts. Obviously, it is still wrong to download music without giving the creators their due. On the other hand, I believe we are headed to the point when we cannot limit the use and distribution of information as we have in days past. Furthermore, this movement will have far less impact on creators than it will on the distributors who pay artists a fraction of their revenue anyway. Artists who embrace the new age of digital information exchange and ditch the old methods of distribution (i.e., fat corporate backers) may see less money but they will enjoy more artistic freedom and likely see a bigger percentage of the money they do bring in. Furthermore, such a system will protect us against the corruption of broadcast radio that results in air time for crappy songs (sorry J. Lo). But anyway, yeah, I'm really digging mash-ups and I'm glad they are freely available for listening.