I did an animation of the two images. There are definite differences – the hairline, the ears, the lower lip. It is transformative.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/typetive/3254191249/sizes/o/

(It’s really big.)

It’s not like there isn’t precedent. There’s Warhol. And before him, Duchamp. Also, Prince, Levine and many others too. As an artist, I wouldn’t put Fairey in the same category because he has positioned himself differently and it’s a different world now with the internet– something that AP will eventually get used to.

What’s sad is organizations like AP that are stuck in the past, with their dead ideas and staff of lawyers who are, in these times, likely taking a hit financially (like the rest of us) and are trying to make themselves seem useful, if not relevant. They are neither.

More fun with Obama and audio:

http://www.aprilwinchell.com/2009/02/05/barack-obama-is-tired-of-your-motherfucking-shit/

Chal,

The AP isn’t “stuck in the past” with “dead ideas”. They are a business trying to turn the biggest profit possible. They did the cost/benefit analysis and decided this strategy would be the most profitable. Whether it turn out to be so remains to be seen. The legal and/or ideological issues are irrelevant.

I have to agree with Oren. Even though I think Fairey would win the case if it goes to court, I don’t see anything wrong with AP deciding, even at this late date, to do something it might see as protecting its rights, if that is the case (or hell, just trying to grab some bucks with a cynical lawsuit), if it thinks that’s a good business decision. A company’s purpose is to make money. It isn’t a company’s role or duty to be non-douchey toward the creative community, UNLESS the company thinks that doing so is good for business.

If we don’t like it, we can try to convince AP’s customers to ditch AP’s product. Apparently, a number of newspapers did just that after AP hired Rove-loving right winger Ron Fournier to run its DC bureau, and, according to analysts, AP’s stories suddenly took on a right wing, anti-Obama slant (which, by the way, may be one of the motives for AP’s lawsuit against Fairey).

It seems the AP may not even have rights to the image. The photographer was not on AP staff at the time he took the picture, and does not want the AP to sue Fairey (see link below).

The photographer is cool with it. Fairey is well within Fair Use rights, transforming the quoted image into something extremely different (so much so that the photographer didn’t even recognize it as from his source). And there is clear precedent in the fine art world for this type of transformative appropriation (Warhol, etc).

Typical corporate BS in regards to copyright — both creators are OK with it, but corporate middle man who may not even hold the copyright wants to profit from an image that INSPIRED a piece of art done for non-profit.

http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/content_display/photo-news/legal-news/e3ib47a6c218351ced3233220e49cf1bb29?imw=Y

[...] to commenter dziga on this post for bringing this to our attention. It seems that Mannie Garcia, the photographer who took the [...]