Plagiarizer, Really?

                                                   The Shepard Fairey Obama poster                 the AP photo by Mannie Garcia

This week we're talking about photo copyright and Fair Use as it regards the iconic Obama campaign poster as seen above. The photo (right) it was based on is technically owned by Associated Press, and they've sued the street artist (Fairey) who "copied" their picture. I see the similarities, but I definitely think this is covered by Fair Use. Yes, he admitted to getting the picture on Google and used it as inspiration, but I don't think he completely copied it. From what I've read in this article on MSNBC, he based his poster on the picture. I don't think he took the picture and simply manipulated it. In fact, in the article from MSNBC, the photo they post as being the "original" is not the exact same angle as the poster. You can tell there that the pose is different. Even the original artist, Mannie Garcia says he didn't recognize it as being based on his picture (see this article).
All that said, I think Mr. Fairey should have first contacted AP and requested permission to use the photo. If they said no, he also could have simply asked the campaign to provide him with an original pose of Obama, and used Creative Commons to protect his work. It's annoying how something so simple can cause so much money and time to be wasted.
In the end, they settled the court case (you can read about it here), but AP is still trying to sue the companies producing the poster. I think this is ridiculous. Just because the artist had to pay tribute to AP does not mean that they now have control over his work. That poster is still his artwork, and should be produced without AP having any say.

Here's me as an "Obama-poster":

You can do your own at Lunapic.com under "editor."