The Overdub Tampering Committee

Last week, a group calling itself the Overdub Tampering Committee posted an online manifesto in which its anonymous members claim to have downloaded songs from various sources (Limewire, OiNK, The Pirate Bay, and so on), overdubbed extra parts, then re-uploaded them. The group claims that if you're a frequent downloader of grey-market music from these types of sites, you've probably got one of their messed-up mashups on your hard drive.

(Credit: Overdub Tampering Committee)

Their tactics remind me of guerilla art from the likes of RTmark and Banksy, with one exception: they offer no proof of what they've done, leading some to suspect an elaborate hoax.

Real or not, imagine if this type of remixing becomes a mainstream activity, with everybody posting their personal dubs to their blogs or social-networking home pages. Perhaps some enterprising artists will begin to sell track-separated versions of their work, a sort of raw material alongside their finished product.