Comments on: “Hope” – The Legal Battle!

By: Steve L.

Steve L. — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 02:21:33 +0000

Fairey is being pimped by USA Network as being someone to watch based on the Obama pic, so I would say that he is profitting nicely.

By: Bozak

Bozak — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 21:14:40 +0000

Surprising…. NOT

A street artist famous for his red, white and blue “Hope” posters of President Obama has been arrested on warrants accusing him of tagging property with graffiti, police said Saturday.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/02/07/national/a074934S62.DTL&tsp=1

By: wag-a-muffin

wag-a-muffin — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:42:41 +0000

Fairey is hoping to gain financially from ripping off the AP? Oh, the audacity of it all!

By: ArchiCrash

ArchiCrash — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 14:47:00 +0000

This is just hilarious. However, I was surprised that picture got popular to begin with. Something about it seemed remeniscent of the old soviet propaganda poster…For the longest time, I assumed that pic was created by a righty-blogger to mock Obama. Shows how out-of-touch I am….

By: Dave

Dave — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:14:31 +0000

Bill,

Neither AP nor the photographer of the original picture knew it was based upon the photo till the artist told the world.

Nice shiny hat tho!

By: dave

dave — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 04:11:23 +0000

The word you are looking for is called transformative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformation_(law)

By: Thomas Talionis

Thomas Talionis — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 03:54:59 +0000

Step one of Socialism is to steal private property. The AP should be grateful only an image was stolen and not . . . the AP.

By: the_logician

the_logician — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 01:48:39 +0000

The artist has already admitted that the AP photo was his source for the painting. Stop claiming that Obama’s contrapposto is slightly different or that the necktie is fatter… Your argument is toast. Photographers are artists too, and the AP’s photo was ripped off here.

By: Ricardo

Ricardo — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 00:31:24 +0000

I think he should have asked to use the image. I know that if I had a photograph that was being used in some way without my permision I’d have an issue with that. Now if I was asked there would be a better chance of me giving my aproval. All he had to do was ask. What if it was a picture of a your child? Are the rules suddely different.

By: Karl

Karl — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:48:28 +0000

Commercial vs. Non-commercial use is one of the main factors in determining fair use under the Copyright Act.