It’s going to be a tough race for President Obama regardless of how ridiculously insane the Republican nominee is. He has to win back his base, re-energize young people and weather what’s sure to be an ugly GOP storm stretching from the U.S. to Nyang’oma Kogelo, despite just having just released his certificate of live birth. Read more »
The AP and Fairey’s Obey Clothing settled their copyright infringement lawsuit and related fracas, before the scheduled March 21 hearing. The resolution is similar to the one earlier this year when Shep agreed to collaborate with the AP and never use their photos without permission again, tsk tsk. The AP also gets a confidential settlement sum and will “collaborate” with Shep on more merch. Read more »
Photographer Manny Garcia and the AP dropped their cases against each other, but Shepard Fairey’s trial date was just set. Did he violate the AP copyright in the eyes of the law? Will he get a presidential pardon? Can he demonstrate “how he made the Obama image” and establish it as a “a work of art based on one photograph?” Don’t hold your breath. The trial date is in March 2011.
Here’s a recreation, in Legos, of the legally contested image of Barack Obama that Shepard Fairey stole from the AP and transformed into an iconic campaign symbol.
The AP gloats: the judge ruled in their favor. Shepard Fairey has been ordered to disclose names and deleted documents involving the big lying mess that the court case has become. Fairey’s lawyers have two weeks to present financial records on the HOPE poster’s online sales. Does this get the poster ejected from the Smithsonian? And, having raised a grand sum for Obama’s campaign, is this going to carry over to the White House?
As you may have heard, Shepard Fairey, stole a photo owned by the AP and transformed it into the iconic “HOPE” image that became a dominating symbol for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and permeated pop culture, even making its way into the Smithsonian. But then the AP sued him and he lied, twice. Read more »
Just as his Boston vandalism charges are wrapped up with a guilty plea, Shepard Fairey’s other legal problems are getting more complex. Mannie Garcia, the freelance photographer who shot the Barack Obama photo on which Fairey based his iconic “Hope” portrait, is jumping in the fray between the appropriating artist and the Associated Press. Garcia is challenging the AP’s lawsuit against Shepard Fairey for copyright infringement, filing a motion that he is the actual owner of rights to the photo. Read more »
As the Associated Press and Shepard Fairey battle it out in court over the copyrights to the iconic HOPE image, other artists continue to use it liberally, in this case with stacked food cans in Portland.
|Photo: Johanna Wallin|
As you may have heard, some graphic sleuths reverse engineered the now iconic and Smithsonian housed “HOPE” illustration that Shepard Fairey created for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign and discovered that it was copied from a photograph taken by Associated Press employee Manny Garcia in 2006. Well the news disseminating wire service isn’t so happy about the infraction and decided to get all gangster on the infamous wheatpasting artist, by suing him, demanding “credit and compensation.” The AP is claiming copyright infringement while Fairey’s high profile lawyer says it’s protected under fair use statutes.
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