A year ago, Liz Miller released her documentary The Water Front to explore what happens when a public resource is exploited for private gain. Now she's using the film to approach the question from an entirely different angle.

Miller launched the Water Front Remix project in October of this year. The project invites people to remix the elements of the film's theme song. (You can, too! Visit waterfrontmovie.com/remix).

The theme song, Mr. Waterman, was written by Joe L. Carter. Initially, Miller wanted the rights to his song, Please, Mr. Foremen, which she explains is “about the radical black labour movement and a reference to the past and to what the city had been through”. After a three-year search, Miller found Carter, who generously offered to record a new song for the film, one that nods to the past but is decidedly about the present situation.

For years, Miller had closely watched debates about information in the public domain and conflicts about ownership of ideas. The remix movement encourages artists to improve, change, integrate, or otherwise recreate the work of copyright holders. Remix efforts promote public ownership of information by directly challenging existing copyright regimes, which aim to control the reproduction and distribution of music.

As the remix movement grew, she began to see parallels with the privatization of water, the subject at the heart of her film. She also noticed the remixing was a way to attract younger people to the film, the subject matter and the labour rights history. For Miller, the contest represents the opportunity for collaboration and the appreciation for continuity between the past and the future.

She also hopes it would raise awareness around the potential for public resources to become privatized. “In order to own something, you have to use it,” she says, “I wanted to raise awareness about what's at stake, and alternatives to just selling things off to the highest bidder.”

The contest went live in October and anyone can download the elements of the song, remix it any way they choose by adding their own sound tracks and upload the results with both Carter and Miller's blessing. The winning entry will be announced after the contest ends on December 16, 2008. Youth groups in Montreal and the U.S. have been approached to participate.