Clarion Content

The creator of the famous Obama poster pictured above is being sued by the Associated Press after mentioning that one of their photos was used as the basis of the image. Shepard Fairey, a street artist, admits his work is based on an Associated Press photograph, taken in April 2006 by Manny Garcia on assignment at the National Press Club in Washington.

The picture has reached a tremendously large audience, stickers, buttons, posters bearing the image were ubiquitous during the campaign, but Mr. Fairey did not benefit from them. Signed copies of the image were and are going for thousands on E-Bay. But again, it is not Mr. Fairey receiving this revenue. Nevertheless, the AP claims it owns the copyright, and it wants credit and compensation. Fairey has admitted he found the photograph using Google Image search. (This is the same technique the Clarion Content uses to find most of the images featured herein.)

Mr. Fairey's esteemed lawyer, the executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford University and a lecturer at the law school there, Anthony Falzone, says that the Fair Use doctrine protects Mr. Fairey's poster. Fair use is a legal theory that interprets exceptions to copyright law, based on, among many other issues: how much of the original is used, what the new creation is used for and how the original is affected by the new meme. Long time readers of the Clarion Content will know us to be ardent opponents of highly restrictive and over-protective patent and copyright law. We are believers in a huge public domain, for philosophical reasons as well as on utilitarian grounds.

Fairey donated his image to the Obama campaign. The A.P. reports that Fairey told an underground photography Web site that, "I donated an image to them [the Obama campaign,] which they used. It was the one that said "Change" underneath it. And then later on I did another one that said "Vote" underneath it, that had Obama smiling."

The campaign for their part says they never used or licensed the picture or poster officially. For its part, the Art continues to resonate, the A.P. notes, "It will be included this month at a Fairey exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston and a mixed-media stenciled collage version has been added to the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery in Washington." Powerful Art for the times!

Fairey, for his part, perhaps paying the price for his recent fame, was arrested in Boston on the way into his exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art. Police spokesmen said he had two outstanding warrants for graffiti in Boston, the 5-0 said he had painted his "Andre The Giant" graffiti near an entrance to the Massachusetts Turnpike and the Boston University bridge across the Charles River.

Thanks to a loyal, local Durham reader for the heads-up on this story.

Labels: 2008's President, Politics, Pop Culture, thought