The 50 Greatest Photo Ops

The AP has reported yesterday that artist Shepard Fairey is being accused of copyright infringement for his now ubiquitous alteration of Barack Obama’s likeness. Fairey has acknowledged that his poster was based on a 2006 photograph taken by Mannie Garcia, an AP photographer on assignment at the National Press Club.

AP claims that as the copyright holder of the photograph, this use by Fairey required permission. Fairey’s lawyer cites fair use, which allows exceptions to copyright claims. A large part of the fair use argument, presumably would be that the creative alterations Fairey made to the photograph establish it as a new and separate work.

What do you think? A blatant copyright infringement or an artist making legitimate use of materials for a substantially new work?

Funny how things like this seem to come to a head once significant amounts of money have changed hands. Fairey’s signed prints of the poster are apparently fetching thousands on eBay. Plus the National Portrait Gallery in Washington has just installed one. But to be fair, and much less cynical, the source of the Obama image was unknown until very recently. It’s provenance was announced by Tom Gralish, a Philadelphia based photojournalist. Follow that story here.