ARTIST SUES A.P. OVER OBAMA IMAGE
Posted by Hassan Kinley | Filed under News + Events
By Randy Kennedy
In a pre-emptive strike, the street artist Shepard Fairey filed a lawsuit on Monday against The Associated Press, asking a federal judge to declare that he is protected from copyright infringement claims in his use of a news photograph as the basis for a now ubiquitous campaign poster image of President Obama.
Photography by Mannie Garcia/Associated Press Illustration by Shepard Fairey
The suit was filed in federal court in Manhattan after The Associated Press said it had determined that it owned the image, which Mr. Fairey used for posters and stickers distributed grass-roots style last year during the election campaign. The photo, showing Mr. Obama at the National Press Club in April 2006, was taken for The A.P. by a freelance photographer, Mannie Garcia.
According to the suit, A.P. officials contacted Mr. Fairey’s studio late last month demanding payment for the use of the photo and a portion of any money he makes from it.
Mr. Fairey’s lawyers, including Anthony T. Falzone, the executive director of the Fair Use Project and a law lecturer at Stanford University, contend in the suit that Mr. Fairey used the photograph only as a reference and transformed it into a “stunning, abstracted and idealized visual image that created powerful new meaning and conveys a radically different message” from that of the shot Mr. Garcia took.
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Tags: Artist Sues, Associated Press, Mannie Garcia, Obama Poster, Shepard Fairey
