Now I don't agree with Fairey's politics, but I do know this. The image of Obama was a standard press shot. The photographer was well compensated for the picture. It was on every Time Magazine in the world. It wasn't precious and terribly original. The photog snapped the shutter at a happy moment.

Fairey took the image, using knives, scissors, glue and spray paint, created an original piece of art which was substantially changed from the photo. The gesture was the same, but everything else was changed. The colors, the contrast, line and tone. He added type, he created gradations out of closely aligned lines, and added a light blue hue along with bright red to Obama's face. If what Shepard's work was so easy, and was clearly a rip-off then the photographer should be able to show how his work was entirely his own. Which of course it was not. There are literally thousand and thousands of photos taken of everything known to man every day. The law states only that a piece of art must be substantially original. In my opinion,Shepard added enough content to the original photo to meet that standard.

As far as I'm concerned the photographer, after being well compensated for his campaign pic, is looking for a bonus on the back of the guy who spent hours and weeks cutting up stencils, designing the piece, hand painting it on his hands and knees in his studio, then scanning it into a high res piece of art. And yes Fairey, should have stood up for what he did (because he did nothing wrong), rather than make up stories that it was really a different picture blah blah blah.