A comparison showing Mannie Garcia’s photograph of Obama next to Shepard Fairey’s ‘Progress’ and ‘Hope’ posters. The portrait of Obama by Shepard Fairey is a stencil portrait. Fairey created a stencil over a scanned and enlarged version of the photograph that was slightly tilted according to various articles. Fairey and a gallery that represents him has stated that he did in fact use the Garcia photograph as the base image for his Obama posters according to news articles. The Assosicated Press claims to own the copyright to Garcia's photograph and desire compensation from Shepard Fairey. Fairey's lawyer states that Fairey did nothing wrong and that is use of the image falls under fair use. Do you think his use of the image falls under fair use? Since the photograph itself is not widely known some lawyers have suggested that Fairey's use does not fall under fair use. In order for it to be fair use there must be a dialogue between the old work and the new work that is obvious to the viewer-- obvious to the majority of the public. Unfortunatey for Shepard the majority of people, including Garcia and the AP, did not make the connection between Garcia's photograph and Fairey's Obama posters. So did Fairey fail at fair use? If so, did he willfully infringe on the photograph?
I have posted several articles about Shepard Fairey and fair use that might be of interest to some of you. My thoughts, http://www.myartspace.com/blog/2009/02/art-law-professionals-weigh-in-on.html
artists_beware
Comments
Artists want their copyright respected and photographers deserve the same.
I guess the repetition can be annoying but this crosses multiple interests (art + politics = everything ever)
I'm a little baffled why this was approved. It may be a topic worth discussing, but why discuss it here and not somewhere where it actually belongs? This isn't "art_philosophy" or even "art_ethics." It's "artists_beware." What am I supposed to beware of here?
No, but perhaps you might be one of the people he steals from someday? There's always a chance.
Starting to fall pretty firmly into the "dead horse" category.
Really found this part of your article interesting:
Orr’s put a SARs protective mask over the famous Fairey image and titled it ‘Protect’. Shepard Fairey sent Orr a cease-and-desist letter and threatened legal action even though the Obey Giant image is considered iconic-- thus, Orr’s use of the image could be considered fair use. If anything, Orr’s use of the image falls under fair use more so than Shepard Fairey’s fair use claim involving the Associated Press photograph of Obama. After all, the photograph of Obama itself was not widely known.
IMHO, I can forgive someone morally (if not legally) for this sort of thing if their practices are consistent even when they are on the losing end of copyright. The fact that he demands other people not appropriate his work pretty much makes him a hypocrite in my book, and I hope he loses any copyright claims made against him. I hate it when people feel entitled to other people's property (intellectual or physical - apparently he's been arrested for
vandalizingarting buildings without permission) but don't freely give theirs own out in return.And its interesting to see how these subjects play out in a more legal perspective.
This applies to me because this is my medium as well: tracing. A customer asks me to do a woodburning portrait of a favorite pet, which I trace from a photograph. In my own work, I'll use a picture I like from books, magazines, or the internet. Yes, I will sell the finished piece. I don't hide the fact that I used a photograph as a reference, and I never pass my stuff off as original images.
So this article is VERY topical, if nothing else because it speaks to me and my work personally.
The photographer is just probably butt-hurt over the fact that some guy is making more money off his work then he did.