Is Shepard Fairey’s ‘Hope’ Fair Use or Copyright Violation?

The street artist Shepard Fairey added to his considerable fame when the Obama campaign unofficially adopted his ‘Hope’ poster, which was based on a photo of Barack Obama taken by AP freelancer Mannie Garcia. Now Mr. Garcia and the AP are threatening to sue for copyright violation after repeatedly contacting Mr. Fairey to demand payment and a portion of revenue from the project. Mr. Fairey, accustomed to both jail time for his guerilla style graffiti activities and also copyright lawsuits, filed a pre-emptive strike against the AP, asking a federal judge to declare that Mr. Fairey is protected from copyright claims due to the concept of “Fair Use”.

According to Mr. Fairey’s lawyers, including Anthony T. Falzone, Executive Director of the Fair Use Project an a law lecturer at Stanford University, Mr. Fairey’s “Hope” poster only used Mr. Garcia’s photograph as a reference and transformed it into “a radically different message,” from the original photo taken by Mr. Garcia.

Images: AP photo by Mannie Garcia, poster by Shepard Fairey

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Tags: barack obama copyright Fair Use Project hope mannie garcia obama shepard fairey Stanford University