ABSTRACT
Authors included in Keywords in Remix Studies shared brief thoughts about appropriation, which were then compiled and remixed by the editors. Appropriation in art is a method for creative expression that can be empowering. The "death of the author" simultaneously breathes new life into authorship writ large. Creativity necessarily requires destruction. Appropriation is the politics of authorship. In Paul D. Miller's chapter, "Versioning," he explains that appropriation "is as old as language itself. Successful appropriations are like Albers' riddle—the borrowed work in addition to its context or juxtapositions creates a third meaning. It is undeniable, regardless of how much remix may or may not rely on appropriation to create new works, that appropriation is play, and at the core of creating. Appropriation may be perceived as being more about the act of the taking—the assertion that the power one has asserted by copying is appropriate—than about the specifics of what has been taken.
