During the campaign I blogged about those Stalinist-style Obama posters. Now it turns out that the artist not only lifted the visual style from the Soviet Union, but stole the base image from the Associated (with terrorists) Press.
Shepard Fairey last week was sued for copyright infringement by the Associated Press, which claims he stole photographer Manny Garcia’s work and made it the basis of the iconic off-red, white and blue posters whose signed editions are being sold on eBay for thousands of dollars.
If found guilty — a liberal application of “fair use” law could protect Mr. Fairey — we have a case of the white man stealing from an ethnic minority in order to turn a quick profit. (I thought an Obama presidency would automatically end such practices.)
Chinese, Latin American and former Soviet Communist artists may also have a claim against Mr. Fairey, whose style is brazenly ripped off from the propaganda campaigns of totalitarian states. If regimes that murdered tens of millions of innocent human beings can be so revered and redeemed, can the swastika be reappropriated, too?
Update:
The hack (I won’t call him an artist) in question turns out to also be a common vandal. You can try to dress it up with names like “tagging”, but vandalism is vandalism.