Today we are discussing whether or not the street artist Shepard Fairey infringed on a copyright of an image owned by Associated Press in order to create the Obama HOPE poster. Mannie Garcia is the actual photographer of the Obama picture in question. "Garcia seems perfectly happy that his photo was used" according to an article in tech dirt. It is absurd for AP to be filing a lawsuit against the artist.
I for one think that the whole matter falls under fair use. The art that Shepard created was considerably altered from the image he referenced. Also it was not done for $$$, rather a combination of recognition for his art and promotion on his political stance.
I chose the image and command SIT for my "Obominized" poster for two reasons. The first being the shear stupidity of the matter. The second as a tribute to the street artist. (SIT like OBEY)
I really like your Obamanized dog with the caption "sit." That is very clever!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the fair use front-- I think that Fairey's alterations to the AP photograph are enough to consider it a different work. Interestingly, in the tech dirt article you reference Garcia states something to the effect of it being unrecognizable--'it just always seemed so familiar.'