What's 'Fair Use'? Shepard Fairey Case

[JBrunner]

Oh you're really gonna get the Obamaphiles going with this one ... you mean you didn't drink the Kool Aid? They gave him a Nobel Prize, you know, for public speaking. :) Any way I am digressing from my own thread. Carry on.

Regards, Art.

Actually Art, your the guy around here that seems to go on about him the most.., :p

[blansky]

That's not it, Michael.
What makes it look cheap, formulaic and propagandistic in the directions of most portrayals of political leaders is the largest than life rendition, shot from below to suggest heroism. It idolized the man when all we knew about him were his excellent oratorical skills.

I think we have to try to separate here, the political from the "art" part. I get the feeling that a large part of your negativity, is that you aren't particularly an Obama fan, which is clouding your argument about the "copying" or art part of the question.

In fact I get that from a lot of the people posting here. I guess it is hard to separate the two, but whether you like or dislike him should not really be a part of the discussion.

My previous argument about the political part of the discussion had to do with the popular culture part. It was not about whether I agreed with the political direction that the art was trying to make. In other words I like the Che poster for its own sake, not about whether I think communism or socialism is a good thing to strive for.

[Domenico Foschi]

I believe you are trying to read between the lines when there is nothing to read.
The work is flattering. The man had never met (and I think he hasn't met yet) Obama, so what really comes out of that image is an idolized representation of the political figure.
If I like or I don't like Obama or his direction is not the point here. The point here is that this is not honest work because it flatters. It is wishful thinking.
This is my position on the subject and I do not understand your effort to try to convince me.
I find it a bit arrogant on your side to think that you are seeing the issue under the right perspective and I am not.

[blansky]

I believe you are trying to read between the lines when there is nothing to read.
The work is flattering. The man had never met (and I think he hasn't met yet) Obama, so what really comes out of that image is an idolized representation of the political figure.
If I like or I don't like Obama or his direction is not the point here. The point here is that this is not honest work because it flatters. It is wishful thinking.
This is my position on the subject and I do not understand your effort to try to convince me.
I find it a bit arrogant on your side to think that you are seeing the issue under the right perspective and I am not.

I don't think there is a "right" perspective. I was merely arguing that it seemed that your opinion, was more about your feeling about the political aspects that the artistic ones.

If I mis-read your comments, I apologise.


Michael

[Domenico Foschi]

I don't think there is a "right" perspective. I was merely arguing that it seemed that your opinion, was more about your feeling about the political aspects that the artistic ones.

If I mis-read your comments, I apologise.


Michael

Nowhere I wrote criticism toward Obama, neither implied anything negative about him.
Anyway, all is well here in SoCal and I hope it's the same in north part of the neighborhood.

[Moopheus]

While it would be hard to argue that it was not taken from that photograph, it is hard to argue that they are the same picture. Fairey's poster transcends the photograph by such a degree that in my opinion it should stand as it's own creation.


It would still be a "derivative work" within the meaning of copyright law. How creative or iconic it is is irrelevant. The law doesn't care about that stuff. All it cares about is whether the new work is based on the old work, and whether use of the old work falls under an allowable category. It would be no different from a film made from a book--the film may be a good movie that stands on its own as a work of art, may be very different from the book that inspired it, but it is still derived from the book and has to be licensed. (For example, the film Blade Runner has very few elements in common with the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, develops the philosophical themes in a different direction, but still counts as a derivative work.)