NEW YORK—After a yearlong presidential campaign in which Shepard Fairey's stenciled image of Barack Obama was disseminated on buttons, posters, stickers, and online and became one of the most ubiquitous images in the world, the Associated Press is now saying that it owns the copyright to the photo on which the image is based and that it wants credit and compensation, the Associated Press reports.
"The Associated Press has determined that the photograph used in the poster is an AP photo and that its use required permission," said the company's director of media relations, Paul Colford.
Fairey has acknowledged that his design is based on a photograph taken in April 2006 by Manny Garcia, a temporary employee who was, at the time, on assignment for the AP. But the artist says he does not owe the AP anything, because his use of the photo — which he found on Google Images — falls under the terms of fair use.
At first, the artist created the iconic Obama portrait with the word "Hope" at the bottom as a unofficial project. As its popularity grew, the President's campaign asked Fairey to create a new version to which the campaign would have official rights.
The image helped raise large amounts of money for Obama and continues to be used as a fund-raiser, and posters signed by Fairey have been offered on eBay for thousands of dollars. But the artist says he has not received any of the money.
The AP and Fairey's lawyer are now in talks about "the continued use of the poster, regardless of whether it is for galleries or other distribution," according to Colford.(Artinfo)
Since the artist has changed that picture to make it a completely different work of art, do you think the AP still own some rights over it?
Yes, I do.
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