A.P. Says It Owns Image in Obama Poster

Barack ObamaThe original Associated Press photograph of Barack Obama and Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” poster. (Associated Press.)

The image of Barack Obama made ubiquitous by Shepard Fairey‘s “Hope” poster looked especially familiar to The Associated Press, which says the artwork infringes on its copyright to a photograph of the president, The A.P. reported. Mr. Fairey has previously acknowledged that his poster, a mixed-media stenciled collage depicting Mr. Obama on a red, white and blue field, is based on an A.P. photograph taken by Mannie Garcia in April 2006. The A.P. said in a statement that any use of the image requires its
permission, and it is seeking credit and compensation for its use in Mr. Fairey’s works; a lawyer for Mr. Fairey told The A.P. that the artist was protected by fair-use standards. In January, The National Portrait Gallery in Washington added Mr. Fairey’s poster to its collection.

BONUS: Tom Gralish, a photographer and blogger at The Philadelphia Inquirer, shows how the “Hope” poster makes use of an Associated Press photo (and not a Reuters photo, as some believed).

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This is IP art theft, for more information on crimes against art including the recent theft of Picasso prints from Berlin, check out //www.arttheftcentral.blogspot.com .

Transformative derivative works are not “theft.” Criminalizing the use of art to create new and substantially different art is not beneficial to artists; just the opposite, in fact.

Dave, fyi, here is a newer link, which recaps and updates the entire search for the source photo, and gives credit (and explains the process) to all the web-sleuths in the photo blog community who tracked down the original image.
thanks, Tom Gralish

//blogs.phillynews.com/inquirer/sceneonroad/2009/01/a_last_word_hopefully_and_upda_1.html

If you can’t use your own photo because some corporation owns it then what has this world come to?

What’s more, per TechCrunch, the photographer who took the picture, Mannie Garcia, says he was only a temporary hire, and never signed an AP contract.
//www.techcrunch.com/2009/02/05/once-again-the-ap-tries-to-redefine-fair-use-goes-after-shepard-fairey-for-obama-poster/

“The image of Barack Obama made ubiquitous by Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” poster looked especially familiar to The Associated Press…”

I was under the impression that The A.P. had no clue that the image was based on one of theirs until Tom Gralish tracked it down and informed them of it.

I wouldn’t think it matters whether Garcia signed an AP contract. If he sold the picture to AP, it’s their property.

Ownership of the photo aside, I don’t see how this isn’t protected under fair use. The value of the art isn’t derived from the inherent IP of the photo per se, but rather the interpretation of the subject.

Imagine a painting of a man sitting on a bench in Central Park, reading the NY Times. Could the Times sue the artist for using an image of their paper? Seems a stretch.

The full extent of Mr. Fairey’s consistent plagiarism can be read in the critique by L.A. artist, Mark Vallen. Mr. Fairey’s slick and exploitative manner of stealing graphics from the international progressive movements of the world has been extensively researched by Vallen and a number of other artists. These stolen images were the product of the collective political voice and not for the personal gain of one graphic artist who refuses to publicly acknowledge the history of the images he uses. Below are links.

Obey%20Plagiarist%20Shepard%20Fairey.html
Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey A critique by artist Mark Vallen

AP, come on! How petty can you get? I’m disgusted.

Oh wow. The nitpicking is ridiculous. How about Andy Warhol’s art, and New Yorker cartoons parodying Whistler’s Mother and the Mona Lisa, and mass-produced statues of the flag-raising on Iwo Jima, etc. etc. So someone was inspired by a photograph and created a work of art based on it. The Associated Press ought to grow up…and lawyers everywhere ought to forget their collective anal-is-sees and grow up! President Obama owns his ‘image'; every feature, every expression, every bit of clothing. Does his barber ‘own’ the President’s haircut? Every photographer who takes pictures of real people gives other artists a rash when they ‘claiming the copyright’ of the image. Associated Press could claim it perhaps if Barack Obama had been invited to their headquarters, agreed (in writing) to pose, and relinquished his rights to copies…which would mean that every television station, and newspaper, and future book, would have to credit it to AP. But it wasn’t AP itself that took the picture; one of their photographers MAY have. If AP’s claim were valid, some screwball legalbeagle could order President Obama never to be photographed in that same pose again…looking to the left, and with his mouth closed, and from slightly below eye level, left shoulder higher than the right, wearing that suit, shirt and tie. Because millions of images have been taken of the President, how does any photographer know that art work is based on ‘their’ image? If you put the poster image over the photo they don’t match line for line. Chill for heaven’s sake and leave the poor artist alone!

Perhaps AP should ask Cambell’s how successful they were suing Andy Warhol a couple of generation’s ago.

Artistic interpretation is not a copyright violation.

You could argue the “HOPE” typeface “looks” like some copyrighted typeface. Should typography designers also charge Mr. Fairey for using lettering that is not his own invention?

The struggle between copyright and artistic liberty is always won by the leap towards the new. Mr. Fairey created something new, clumsier, warmer, more poetic and sincere.

AP wants to profit for their own laziness.

This is a tough issue. Photographers regularly capture other people’s image for profit. It is frequent that those same photographers will then charge their ‘subject’ , even though that subject did not agree to be photographed, for a copy of the photo. This happens regularly with celebrity, famous artists, musicians and yes, politicians. It is a theft of sorts.

The Native American believed that a photograph stole your soul and often would refuse to sit for a portrait. They could be right. They might certainly be right that photographing you without your permission is a rude affront, or exploitation of the person. With the same dialogue of ‘free everything’ and ‘everything public domain’ literature and music in the main stream, the problem of ethics is front and center for anyone with a conscience.

Some feel that any work or ”composition’ should belong , free of charge, to all. But, contrary to some of the respondees here who say
that an artist’s ‘rendering’ of a photo into another type of
work, such as Rauschenburg or Warhol were prone to do,
entitled them to full ownership, is still, in my book, unfair and absurd. If Tiny Tim played John Coltrane’s “Love Supreme’ on his ukelele, and recorded it, he should have to pay royalties to the Coltrane family. This, despite the fact that he certainly altered it’s expression.
Coltrane was the composer and his children should be paid.

This should be true too for a photographer who was
allowed by the subject to take a portrait and if there was no such allowance and if the photographer didn’t have a contract with AP surrendering the image to them in ownership, then Obama shoujld own the image.
It’s his visage and nobody else’s. For those who have found legal loopholes or think this is nit picking,
I think if this was their profession, they might feel differently, unless they were Radio head and were using ‘FREE as an advertisement.

The current ‘shoplifting’ that is in vogue with the
info-mania generation, is a phony ethic which
supports theft by those who would be outraged if someone broke in and ran off with their i pod.

Can someone please explain a sense of responsibility and consideration to others for people that think that everything automatically should be free and belong to them–if they don’t want to have to pay?

HIs work stems from coping old propaganda posters. There is no art here, its embarrassing that people think this is original. His work is as bad as a zerox copy, infused with sayings that simply contribute to his bank account. Communist posters for capitalist gain. Real cool….

That’s crazy. I just heard Shepard Fairey on ‘Fresh Air’ not more than a month ago discussing this. He said the had taken the image from an A.P photo, but that he didn’t know who and that nobody had contacted him about potential copyright infringement – he actually thanked them for not doing so. I guess that’s the end of that.

No, AP must have a contract specifying the terms of use and if they don’t they do not have a legal claim to ownership. Usually, freelance artists or photographers sell under a use condition — for use on the cover of $X amount of use in editorial or feature $Y and the a duration under which the photographer cannot resell it use to another magazine or a competing publication.

But at the heart of this issue is the one of transformative derivative by an artist as the earlier comment suggests. I think it is fairly easy to say this is not “thief” and there is a huge president out there with pop art and through the history of art for artist to create works derived from other works of art or images in mass culture from beer cans to newspapers to covergirls and light bulbs.

If some lawyer or corporate power in a litigious society seeks to inhibit free expression in this way, our culture is in deep trouble. I can think of hundreds of examples, if not thousands, where the artist has appropriated imagery, even corporate logos and iconography to comment on our lives. It is absolutely true and without question that the success of AP in making this claim would have horrific consequences for all artists.

It is interesting to me that several people feel that it is “fair” for someone to take an image that belongs to someone else, make tons of money with it, and then not give some of that money back to those who own the original image (without which the person would not have created anything).

How could it be “fair” for Shepard Fairey to not give some money back to the owners of the image?

OK George T, what about Marcel Duchamp’s use of the Mona Lisa in his 1919 ready-made under the title “L.H.O.O.Q.” — “Elle a chaud au cul”

If you want to start his let’s go because there are thousands of examples you are going to have to provide explanations for the use of the imagery. Thousands. This examination of the artifact and trial will be like counting ballots in a Minnesota Senate election.

Does all this just boil down to money in your small mind?

It is absolutely about money. After all, if the AP is going to sue, they will sue for money.

Photographers are famously under-compensated, and if one took a photo so great that others want to use it, I think she should be compensated. Why did Mr. Fairey use that photo? Why didn’t he use his own photo? One might argue that the photograph was the most difficult aspect of creating his piece; without it, there would have been no piece (manipulating the photo in Photoshop took mere minutes).

The Mona Lisa is a bad example because it was created 400 years earlier, daVinci was long dead, the image was one well worn into the public conscious, and had fallen into anyone’s idea of ‘public domain.’ In the same way, the Campbell’s logo (although perhaps not in the public domain) was well worn into the public conscious, and thus ripe for public satire or commentary.

When Mad Magazine does the same thing, they create their own imagery for their commentary and satire; Mad Magazine does not appropriate direct images from films or other’s photos.

Thus, Mad Magazine or Mr. Warhol are protected by fair use, whereas Mr. Fairey should not be. He stole an photo that was recently created by someone who makes a living creating such photos. Fair use might be using the official photo that now hangs in all federal buildings, but not using an obscure photo that has paid little to its owner or creator.

Contemporary classical music is a good example to bring in. Living composers write music and depend on others paying to play it. No contemporary music performer would think that her performing some composer’s work is ‘fair-use,’ and thus she wouldn’t have to pay the composer a fair share when she performs the work live. To be sure, any performance of written music is merely an ‘interpretation’ of what the composer wrote, and artistic interpretation is what many are claiming as fair use by Mr. Fairey.

I have tried to explain why it is not fair for Mr. Fairey to make, AND NOT SHARE, money from the work of others. I am not arguing that Mr. Fairey give up all his money, but merely give a fair share to the owners of the photo, just as both the music performer and composer make money on a musical performance. Can someone, in good faith, try to explain why it is fair to not compensate the owner or creator of the photograph, who depends on taking photos and selling them to eat? Mr. Fairey has made a lot of money on the image, and I feel that he should share it with the photo’s owner.

Shepard Fairy DONATED the image to the Obama campaign anyone who made money of it (besides the donations towards the presidential camping of the man who’s face is the subject in both image) did so by stealing the image that Mr Fairy made using the AP photo as reference. Mr Fairy makes his money from books of his art, clothes and commissioned work he makes thanks to his fame. Besides it is not like he actually used any of the picture in his image, you are telling me that I can’t look at a picture of Obama draw his face and then sell it. Also that image has been plastered all over the country on stickers and t-shirts how come it took the AP this long to realize it was one of theirs, you would think that if it was such an issue the Photographer would have said something well over a year ago.

One more point I think that this issue also stems from the fact that many people can;’t wrap thier heads around digital art and how it is made. I t is assumed that all you need to do is hit a few buttons and bam! the computer makes art for you, but the computer is just like any other art tool and it takes the creativity, time and talent of the artist to manipulate that tool to produce the desired effects. I am pretty sure that Mr Fairy used Adobe Illustrator to make this and it appears to me that he took the time to simplify the image into its most basic graphic shapes then traced the image and composed the detail in such a way that the image went from a mere photo to an icon. This wasn’t just a “bad Zerox” I wish it was that easy to make an image like that. Artists already have a tough enough time as it is, the median wage for a professional illustrator has not changed for 30 years! we get paid the same today as Illustrators did in the 60’s & 70’s, even though now we need to know not only print design but web, video, and animation while trying to buy this equipment ourselves, maybe that is why art isn’t up to everyones standards any more, yeesh everyone’s a critic.

Marcel Duchamp’s use of Mona List is not a bad example since the artists use of that image was meant precisely to challenge the conventions of ownership and the right of artists to reproduce or transform and reproduce a famous piece of art. That’s was the fluxus and Dada movements were all about.

But take many other instances in art history from more recent times copying contemporary icons: Robert Rauschenberg and the NT Times, Jasper Johns and Ballantine Beer can, Warhol and Campbell soup can (professional designers crafted those cans) or the GE Logo — all these things have been used directly and transformed in works of art, been bought and resold, and now belong in major art collections.

And, I might add, that you suggest the original artist or photographer might be or have been harmed by being reproduced or transformed into another art work. That is a spurious claim and one that courts and judges have long debated and the precedent has been set on the side of artistic freedom and not with litigious oppression — at least for now.

It seems like the AP is simply jealous of Shepard Fairey.
The AP has not lost anything out of Fairey’s use of the photo, and Fairey has not gained anything, for he donated the image to the Obama campaign. Fairey did not produce the image so that he may gain money; he does this mostly through his clothing company, and other art. Fairey created the image simply to support Obama.
It is simply sad that the AP has created this lawsuit. Please, how much more greedy can somebody get? In this day, the AP is just another example of the rapacity of some American corporations.

Common, guys. Don’t you read your own newspaper?

//www.nytimes.com/2007/12/06/arts/design/06prin.html

“If the Copy Is an Artwork, Then What’s the Original?

By RANDY KENNEDY
Published: December 6, 2007

Since the late 1970s, when Richard Prince became known as a pioneer of appropriation art — photographing other photographs, usually from magazine ads, then enlarging and exhibiting them in galleries — the question has always hovered just outside the frames: What do the photographers who took the original pictures think of these pictures of their pictures, apotheosized into art but without their names anywhere in sight?”

etc.