Hope and Progress for Shepard Fairey

Shepard Fairey's Iconic PosterThe Associated Press is suing artists now.

Remember this iconic poster? Just one year ago they were plastered on walls across America- and though many of us recognize these posters, few of us would know the background story on one of the most recognizable visuals of the early 21st century.

The poster was created by artist Sheldon Fairey from an AP photograph. As a blogger, I stopped using AP articles because they threatened to charge by the word for any content taken out of their stories, and their approach is no less severe on the use of their artwork. Fairey used the photograph under the Fair Use Doctrine- this doctrine is defined by the U.S. Copyright Office as allowing the reproduction of a work if used as for the purposes of “criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research.”

Photo Credit: tonx

I support Fairey against the AP as a freedom of speech thing, and I just wish the AP would give up on trying to prosecute this one- isn’t it enough to get the notoriety that your photograph led to art that led to the election of our president? That may be too socialist of a claim for a journalism content association in a capitalist market. I digress.

Fairey has been far from blameless in this. So far, he has:1)    Lied about which photograph he used. 2)    Destroyed evidence that showed which photograph he used.  3)    Said that stuff doesn’t matter, that the real issue is the unfair lawsuit.

Mr. Fairey, it seems you really don’t want to get in trouble for this one- in fact, it seems pretty innocent. You take a photo and make some art out of it- then the folks who own the photo come by and say hey, you can’t use that without proper citation. And then you’re like, well, it’s not that photo I used anyway…Sounds cowardly, but not that hard to imagine. Then Fairey sued the AP around the Fair Use Doctrine, but it turns out he fabricated some evidence and destroyed other evidence- things are not looking good for Mr. Fairey.

It seems that even his legal counsel is asking the court for the right to stop being his counsel. That’s what happens when you steal something, then lie about what you stole, then lie about it on television, then sue the people (the AP) who are calling you out on the lie, then backpedal on all of it and say, ok, I lied, but it was still Fair Use…

The AP is a nonprofit and they count on revenue from licensing images- that’s the main issue here. Fairey is a professional artist and has licensed things from the AP in the past, so it is strange that he didn’t do it this time around. In a statement out today reprinted on PaidContent.org, Fairey says that,

“The new filings [by him in the case] state for the record that the AP is correct about which photo I used as a reference and that I was mistaken. In an attempt to conceal my mistake I submitted false images and deleted other images.”

That’s some honesty right there. We’ll see if the court cares.

Fairey claims the real issue here is Fair Use. The AP says the issue is not paying for content and then lying about it.

What do you think?