
I promise I’ll get back to covering the nail biting events in the Anna Nicoke Smith drug use debate in a moment, but this is important.
If you’re reading this, it means you live in a place that has internet access, which means you’ve also seen the above poster.
The now ubiquitous image was “created” (read: re-colored in Photoshop) by artist Shepard Fairey during the 2008 campaign, and quickly spawned countless parodies. My favorite is this Amy Winehouse inspired one.
However, the image, which has made Fairey a lot of money, is based on a photograph owned by the Associated Press– a photograph that Fairey didn’t have permission to use. The artist and the Ap (sounds like the title of a left wing children’s book) have been tangling in court for a year over “fair use” issues.
This is important to you because you could get into a lot of trouble if you scribble on a picture of a famous person, post it on the internet, and then that picture becomes really popular. (Sasha could get sued for her Zack Efron Avocado.)
But now the powers that be say that Fairey’s case has “fallen apart” because he lied, or in the artist’s words “was confused about,” exactly which AP photo he based his work on.
Fairey himself admitted that he didn’t use The Associated Press photo of Obama seated next to actor George Clooney he originally said his work was based on — which he claimed would have been covered under “fair use,” the legal claim that copyrighted work can be used without having to pay for it.
Instead he used … a solo picture of the future president… underlined with the caption “HOPE.” Fairey said that he tried to cover up his error by submitting false images and deleting others.
The distinction is critical because fair use can sometimes be determined by how much of an original image or work was altered in the creation of a new work. Fair use cases also may consider the market value of the copyrighted material and the intended use of the newly created work.
So, both photos were taken at the same event, by the same photographer. The difference is that one of them was zoomed in on Obama, and the other was not.
So, if Fairey had used the wider-angle picture of Obama sitting next to Clooney, the artist would have a “fair use” leg to stand on?
We use a lot of photos and videos on this site, and I’m personally terrified of my broke ass getting sued by some giant corporation because I didn’t credit something properly. Please don’t tell me that the “crop” command is the difference between freedom of expression and copyright infringement.