Mash-ups: The Bastardisation of Music or Emergence of a new genre?

The lecture on music in the digital age found and the reading by Sean Ebare very interesting and informing. What I found interesting the most was that view on how music is, psychologically, inextricably related to identity, difference and social group consciousness (Ebare 2004). What I found interesting about the reading which goes hand in hand with the lecture was the issue of genre, which Ebare describes as being in the center of music consumption and manufacturing. That music which can be more easily narrowed into a genre is easier to market and accepted by listeners as there are already fan bases situated around them. In regards to this point, a question comes to mind; what happens then to songs that are considered hybrids, these so-called mash-ups? What genre do they hall into?
In addition to that is what was discussed in the lecture by Nabeel Zuberi in regards to mash-up/remix culture, a phenomenon which is relatively still new about 6-7 years I think Nabeel mentioned. I have heard mash-up albums like the collaborations between rapper Jay-Z and band Linkin Park and various other remixes and sampling but never really thought about the legalities behind them. The dialogue between singer/song writer George Clinton and artist Hank Shocklee I found very insightful on questions of originality and ethics of sampling amongst artists, as I always wondered myself how much exactly would artist have to pay for a certain amount of sampling as it is pretty much everywhere nowadays. I definitely believe that credit should be given where its due, for instance using a sample of a composition in a new song with added instruments or a little alteration of the original; but what would happen in the case of using excerpts of a song? How would one figure out how much credit and remuneration the original artist should get? And whether or not it is actually applicable as is another question; although it is being made from the sort of building on of the template of the original piece, but in its own right becomes a total different composition in the process. This lecture and reading has really helped me to start to think more about the passive and proactive audience on how this relationship changes with the introduction of technology and software in which numbers of amateur musicians are growing. This has all just ended up bringing up more questions, anybody have anything to add to this?

-RiX