Crossroads: Intertextual Strategies And Economic Relations In The Age Of Digital Music

Abstract

This paper proposes that music in the digital age is based in the use of intertextual strategies as ways of creation supported by technology. The use of sampler, covers or quotations are strategies that appears in all modern popular music and are basic elements in musical cultures as electronic or hip hop. In an informational economy in which the exchange of products is not the basic business but the ones of author’s rights, this creative strategies are confronted with market rules that pretend the limitation of the use of previously created musical materials. This paper will examine critically this complex framework to explore what kind of contributions can make both semiotic studies and the political economy of media.