The articles from Wednesday, and particularly some of my class mates’ blog posts touch on the commodification of death in our society. It is clear that celebrity deaths more often than not lead to more ‘fame,’ whether it be more followers, more hits, or more streams. However, I’m not sure this is really so much a marketing tool, as Richy brought up, as it is an artifact of our digital society. While increased ‘fame’ for someone like Nipsey Hussle is definitely a good thing, he is certainly an outlier in this regard. Nipsey stood for a lot of things, most notably changing the ways in which we struggle to see eye-to-eye with one another, and he spread this message through his music and many other efforts. In the case of, as a random example, Mac Miller, he didn’t necessarily have such a stance that was worth increased fame. Of course it is sad to lose such an artist, but Mac Miller having more streams on Spotify doesn’t impact society in a greater way.
In terms of dealing with images of a person and uses of their likeness, I think that people’s likeness, including but not limited to cartoon renditions and physical images, should belong to them. In the case of dead celebrities, I believe that their estate should be allowed some say over how the deceased’s likeness is used. The problem with this is that its just not feasible, with the way the internet works, to fully control something like this. The way I see it, the estate should have the right to sue in cases of unauthorized use AND misuses of the deceased’s image. However, it is important that these suits aren’t carried out just for monetary profit, but rather to maintain a person’s image in their absence.
Further, to respond to one of Tess’s questions, I don’t think there’s a difference between calling them images or biometric data or likeness, but I see where the confusion might lie. At the end of the day, these are all ways to describe the same information that is unique to an individual and therefore carries tacit connections with that person, no matter what. Like I said before, though, I’m not sure exactly how this should play out legally, but fundamentally I’d like to think that I get some say in the way that pictures of me are used.