Judy D.

Greetings ArtConversation Visitors,

This was an interesting topic brought up on Art Education 2.0 (Ning network), by the Dr. Craig Roland.

Here is a portion of his post (I am sure I have his permission to share it here):
Shepard Fairey, creator of the iconic Obama image, continues to garner attention in the media. In this case, however, he may be wishing the spotlight were shining on someone else. Yahoo! News reported yesterday that The Associated Press is upset with Fairey's use of an AP photographer’s image of Obama and is claiming copyright infringement. Fairey, of course, is claiming his use of the image (which he downloaded from Google) is acceptable under the Fair Use provision of U.S. Copyright law.

Hyperlinks included in his post:
Shepard Fairey - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awKJQ-HfEHc
Yahoo News - AP alleges copyright infringement of Obama image
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090204/...t/obama_poster
Fair use - http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl102.html
Copyright Law - http://www.copyright.gov/title17/

I have a Yahoo email account - don't know how I missed this news (although they may not have featured it that day).

More articles are available online.

Some additional links from Dr. Roland's entire post:
Law and the Net: Dangerous Ground
http://www.net4tv.com/Voice/story.cfm?STORYID=189

Case of Copyright Infringement - Robert Rauschenberg
http://www.benedict.com/Visual/Rausc...schenberg.aspx

Copyright lesson for students (by Dr. Craig Roland):
http://www.artjunction.org/levine_index.php

Here is my brief reply:

Greetings,

Thanks for posting this. The original work of art maybe could be justified as "Fair Use" (however, following the "letter of the law" any "derived work" IS copyright infringement) - but the continued sales of the image would not fall under "Fair Use" (and I am sure Fairey received compensation for the Time Magazine cover using an AP photo). This is a similar argument for Barry Kite (an admitted "image thief" - who loves his work). He creates "Art parody"/Art Collage. His original work of art could/would be considered "Fair Use" - but he has been "called on the carpet" for the sale of multiple images. No formal charges have ever come about. He generally settles by giving the original copyright holder several copies of his work. This however, would not be of much use to museums owning the original works of the masters. He did receive a cease and desist from a European Museum (don't remember which one now) - Barry didn't stop making the prints and nothing ever came about it.
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This one has me curious. I will continue to follow the story.

Regards,

Judy Decker

John

Frankly I think the AP is wrong on this. The poster may be similar to the photograph, but it's been redone (unlike Andy Warhol, who painted directly over iconic photographs), and there are slight differences in the angle of Obama's head and even the expression on his face.

If the artist hadn't already acknowledged his use of the photo, I doubt they would have any case at all.

Judy Decker

Thanks John,

I am inclined to agree with you. I saw an interview with Shepard Fairey in which he admits he found the photo doing a Google image search (think it was on "Cobert Report")

Here is a site with more Fairey "borrowed" images:
http://www.art-for-a-change.com/Obey/index.htm

I will let you folks know if I find more on this.

Judy Decker

Judy Decker

Greetings ArtConversation Members,

I see that many have viewed this topic - so I will share what new "news" I know.

New York Times featured this article:
Artist Sues The A.P. Over Obama Image
by Randy Kennedy (published Feb 9)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/10/ar...html?th&emc=th

From the article:

"In a pre-emptive strike, the street artist Shepard Fairey filed a lawsuit on Monday against The Associated Press, asking a federal judge to declare that he is protected from copyright infringement claims in his use of a news photograph as the basis for a now ubiquitous campaign poster image of President Obama."

This is interesting:

[AP]..."made it clear that a settlement would benefit the A.P. Emergency Relief Fund, a charitable fund that supports A.P. journalists around the world who suffer personal loss from natural disasters and conflicts.”

And here is an interesting "twist":

"Further complicating the dispute, Mr. Garcia contends that he, not The Associated Press, owns the copyright for the photo, according to his contract with the The A.P. at the time. In a telephone interview on Monday, Mr. Garcia said he was unsure how he would proceed now that the matter had landed in court. But he said he was very happy when he found out that his photo was the source of the poster image and that he still is."

New York Times online is FREE. You simply sign up with your email address. Many art topics are daily.

As John pointed out. AP would not have known about this if Fairey had not talked (in several interviews) about grabbing the photo from Google images. Bloggers "discovered" the AP photo and Fairey has admitted it is the one he used.

You might be interested in seeing Peter Max's Obama paintings - all 44 of them:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/cult...peter-max.html

Enjoy,

Judy Decker

rhyder

Actually you are mistaken. The law is that if a layman can recognize the work as being derivative of the original, it violates copyright law. This is clearly a violation.

John

I didn't know that was the criteria. But surely this principle must be applied differently in photography than in other arts? After all, any photograph taken from roughly the same angle would look similar.

goo

i heard the Terri Gross interviews on fresh air i think the AP tried to intimidate S.F. by threatening a lawsuit and fairey initiated the law suit he filed one before they did to try and manipulate the situation to his favor . - goo