I Ain't Remixing Maggie's Image No More - Bringing It All Back Home to the Source of an Image, and the Integrity of Creative Freedom

Maggie was protesting for an anti-sweatshop campaign on the grounds of Michigan State University, and while doing so, was involved in a harmless snowball fight when a candid picture was taken of her. She claims to have been aware of the photographer when the picture was taken, but she did not not know WHY the picture was being taken, and for WHOM. The image was later used by Michigan State on their website to advertise the university. The image of Maggie was no longer in Maggie's control, because the image was taken by a photographer for the school. The new image was no longer "Maggie" and now was to represent a student of the university having fun in the snow, with there being no more attachment at all to the protest, which is why Maggie was having a snowball fight in the first place. Since the signification of this image has changed drastically so that the image represents the university at large, has it changed enough for the university to use the image, and is it ever appropriate to use the image with a new intent? A major question the reading poses is: Where is the line drawn for creative freedom in a remixed work?

One of the main things the reading tries to do is pinpoint who is really the owner of the image of Maggie, and "zooms out" of the scenario at all of the factors involved. The owner is the one who should be ultimately responsible for the permission of the image, but is the context is changing, does that mean there's also a new owner to an image? How much does Maggie control in an image of herself, if the context is changing to distort her and to represent a larger meaning other than herself? If Maggie is represented as a "female college student", and then her original image is general enough that it technically no longer has an owner?

Maggie is the image in the picture. The representation can replace "Maggie" with "college student", yet Maggie cannot be replaced in the image. If there had been no Maggie to be there at the snowball fight, there would have been no image to be remixed into being "college student", so this remixed work couldn't exist without Maggie. Then, does this mean that Maggie should be responsible for herself and the main agency? However, beginning to see the other factors involved, there would have been no image of Maggie without a photographer to take her picture. Does that mean the photographer is in control of his image since he took it? Zooming out even more, this is all taking place on the university ground, so the photographer could not have taken the picture if he had not been involved in the university to begin with, and Maggie would not have been on the university grounds if the protest was not taking place there. Since Maggie was involved in a protest that took place on campus, is it the university's image? Since the remixed work is still taking place on campus, this part is hardly remixed, so does that make it okay? The reading mentions that this took place in a public area, after all, so since there is technically no privacy in public,

These all should be considered factors, but the real question is then, who has the most power in an image of Maggie, and does this power change as the extent to which the image is remixed?

But what if Maggie wasn't a student at the university, and just a protest? Does that imply her image should elusively be represented as a protester if there is no affiliation to the university, besides it taking place on the university grounds? What if the photographer had not been affiliated with the university? Besides this obviously being creepy, does this at all change the university's rights to using an image that was taken on their grounds?

It is all a matter of who has what right to granting permission. The integrity of the image is complicated because of the signification of the image and the multiple owners.

Had the image of Maggie still represented protest, so that the signification had been altered to a smaller degree, had Maggie have had more control of her image, even in this context she is still no longer "Maggie", either? Or is this up for Maggie to decide?

One thing the reading mentions is the technicalities of a contract and how this may have affected Maggie's control of her image. But had this ultimately affected Maggie's awareness? I personally believe that whether or not she had agreed to photos being allowed to use her for the school in fine print, this does not account for her awareness for when the photo was taken. If the photographer had believed in integrity, he would have asked for permission so that he could use the photo. It could be argued that this would take away the candidness of the photo, but this also takes away Maggie's control of her own image. I think no matter the context of the image, no matter the technical complexity of ownership, Maggie is the central factor of this scenario because it is her image, and no remixes could exist without her. The signification should be allowed to change, but since permission was not granted initially, changing the signification impacts the importance of permission. Even if the representation deteriorates from Maggie's intent in context of the original photo, this initial permission still plays a big role. I think if she had allowed permission, her ownership is passed on, but since this was not granted, the ownership increasingly becomes complicated for the worse, but could have been easily avoided had the proper actions taken place.