Cassetteboy: The Art of Mashup

Cassette Boy are an electro comedy duo who's identities to this day remain something of a mystery. They have taken KZbin by storm with all manner of cuts, edits and frenetic mashups gaining millions of views and earning them several (slightly awkward) TV appearances. They've mocked the world at large with their vids (The 'Bloody' Apprentice was a notable contribution) and even written a novel Earth Inc (which incidentally took 6 ½ years to write). Their videos will make you laugh, dance or in the case of the BBC, probably piss you off.
They guide us through their topic of expertise: how to fail at making a living. They discuss their humble beginnings, when mashups were still a nebulous art and they were limited to physical tape decks. They also talk about the bigger issues: dedicating twenty years of life to copyright infringement, and the difficulty of getting celebrities to say 'wank' using editing software.

[@maybepumpkins]

Thanks for the upload. Great to learn a bit more about them. I liked the insights they offered: limitation helps creativity, and you are creatively free when you aren't getting paid for your work.

[@SpencerStern82]

Thanks for the history insight into your newly found success. No artist was harmed in the process of mashing up. We love mash-ups.

[@osearthesp]

sooo dope!!!

[@Resimaster]

They can't get paid because their videos use tiny snippets of footage, yet people post whole reviews using fifteen minutes of movie footage and get paid regularly. WTF?!

[@beeble2003]

First thing to note is that mashups have become legal in the UK in the time since this lecture was given. Also, _CassetteBoy vs The Bloody Apprentice_ is back on KZbin, with 6.8M views -- presumably they appealed the takedown and won, since the upload date is May 2009, years before it was taken down. Laws differ from country to country but the thing about movie reviews is that the review itself is original material and copyright law in most places explicitly allows quotations for review. Obviously, there are limits -- you couldn't just include the whole movie and add the review "I really enjoyed that" -- but you're usually not going to get into trouble if you're only using a small fraction of the original material. The problem with mashups is (or, rather, was) that there's no original material: 100% of the resulting audio and video was taken from others. Of course, finding exactly which parts to take and in which order is hugely creative and UK law now recognizes that -- but it didn't used to.

[@dannyoman7219]

thanks for the laugh's

[@Joey59101]

LOL

[@callactm14]

Ive done that shit in the 90s no big deal. check EBN thats proper intelligent mash up

[@ToastedWafflez]

Massst'bation.

[@M11rf]

Reading? That was awkward...

[@beeble2003]

Sure, but not everybody is confident in their ability to speak in front of a couple of hundred people. I'd rather hear them give a slightly awkward read talk than not hear them at all.

[@countbasie8470]

Ok fellow geeks whats the track at 2:27 please

[@NeptuneReturnz]

Count Basie Kakoric "Fenchlaw" Dan Dix remix.

[@stoat2]

Sounds like a very awkward best man speech...

[@markuslebt]

guys you´re reading off an iphone. is this supposed to be your life story.. gimme a break...you´re not the starving artists you pretend..

[@estoniaman]

It's paper cards in his hand..

[@bmortloff]

estoniaman Might be Ipaper.

[@ikillstupidcomments]

St. Mark We've finally come to a point where kids don't recognize index cards and assume that they're some new thing shat out by Job's bloated corpse. It's a brave new world, lads and lassies.