preview

Shepard Fairey Case

Decent Essays

In 2011, artist Shepard Fairey and The Associated Press resolved their legal conflict over “Hope”, a renowned poster from Barack Obama’s campaign. This conflict initiated in 2009 when Fairey sued the Associated Press because it convicted him of infringing copyright after he based his poster on one of its photos. It said his usage of the photo did not institute fair use. (Kennedy, 2011). In 2010, Fairey conceded that he falsely identified the photo from The Associated Press that he used for the poster. In order to disguise it, he presented inaccurate or distorted photos and removed some others, which resulted in a criminal investigation. Fairey stated that he originally thought The Associated Press was mistaken about the photo it said he used, but became aware that they were correct. (Kennedy, 2011). Richard Prince had an art show consisting of an installation of enlarged photographs from his Instagram feed, New Portraits. They came from many different accounts on Instagram and were being sold for up to $100,000 at an art fair in New York. He established his whole career on the practice of appropriation. His refinements of the initial works and the complications of fair use have been major contributions to his positive legal state. However, the most significant changes to the photos in this installation are comments left under them. New …show more content…

It does not deal with credit being given, and its main purpose is for the common good. However in some school projects, students are required to cite the locations of the images they use. Copyright grants an artist exclusive rights over their work, but it does not always work in the favor of the artist or owner of the work. It is inevitable that someone would either use, repurpose, or steal an artwork, and it is not something that can be prevented. However, there are methods for an artist to use for their

Get Access