Obama artist makes plea deal in Mass. case

[comahead]

Obama artist makes plea deal in Mass. case

[soupsandwich]

his statement to the court was pretty admirable. He shoulda took it to the box though.

[Cody Pomeroy]

Do you think his image manipulation excuse as far as AP goes holds water?

[DenisMutter]

that's the billion dollar question. I think any reasonable person would say that the image was literally transformed from a throw away celeb press pic of a long shot presidential candidate with george clooney or whatever into an iconic work of art - that photo never would have been seen again were it not for Fairey's poster.

but a reasonably greedy company trying to assert its intellectual property rights would say cry foul and grab for whatever it could get. I'm guessing it never occurred to AP that Fairey gave away the rights to the image, and didn't personally profit from it, ergo, there's nothing tangible to recover, but hey - we can still give a smack down to millions of artists out there.

[uncle charlie]

on one hand every artist dreams of this kind of controversy. Shep has probably sealed his future as a legend. The publicity he is getting will pay well for him in the future.
On the AP situation, I find it difficult in swallowing that he "dramatically" changed the Obama image. Milton Glaser commented on this very topic calling Sheps Hope poster "discomforting" and lacked creativity.

[Ghost]

I'm guessing it never occurred to AP that Fairey gave away the rights to the image, and didn't personally profit from it...

That is absolutely false. They did all the in house poster printing and sold it in their own stores... he made MILLIONS off of that image despite what anyone says...


..and I love Shep.

[goad74]

Isnt it pretty much a given that anybody who draws or paints a person they don't have personal access to and wants to make it realistic is going to have to rely on someone else's photograph?

[Ghost]

Isnt it pretty much a given that anybody who draws or paints a person they don't have personal access to and wants to make it realistic is going to have to rely on someone else's photograph?

Common sense would dictate a 'yes' answer, I think.

[goad74]

That is absolutely false. They did all the in house poster printing and sold it in their own stores... he made MILLIONS off of that image despite what anyone says...


..and I love Shep.

"By the election I had made three hundred thousand of those posters and half a million stickers, a lot of T-shirts, done a lot of billboards, and large painted-in mural installations in different cities. It was all done grass roots and it was just funded by selling some posters and reinvesting the money. I did a couple of art pieces for some bigwigs; Russell Simmons commissioned an art piece and this guy from Universal Pictures got an art piece. I just put all that money back into making more stuff, so I didn't keep any of the Obama money."

I think he did make millions of dollars in promotion for himself though.

[Ghost]

"By the election I had made three hundred thousand of those posters and half a million stickers, a lot of T-shirts, done a lot of billboards, and large painted-in mural installations in different cities. It was all done grass roots and it was just funded by selling some posters and reinvesting the money. I did a couple of art pieces for some bigwigs; Russell Simmons commissioned an art piece and this guy from Universal Pictures got an art piece. I just put all that money back into making more stuff, so I didn't keep any of the Obama money."

I think he did make millions of dollars in promotion for himself though.

Yeah, I think what AP is saying though, is that they don't care where the money went, it's the fact that they missed out on the cash grab.