Yes, yes, i know this is not Shepard Fairey's actual Hope piece, but that is my point. Shepard Fairey received a lot of grief for his use of the Washington Post's (i think) photograph, but this work obviously resembles the original work far more then Fairey's work yet who has heard any commotion about this piece. ( This is hardly the only version either, I feel like because of the hype about this piece it has lead to even more adaptations then would have occurred naturally.)
Intellectual property rights and the concept of ownership in a digital world is diminishing at a rapid rate. While earlier examples, such as perhaps Andy Warhol using Campbell's Soup or Monroe's portrait, displayed the beginning attempts at "Fair Use" of others work; The internet and digital formats in general have tested the limits of Fair use.
Shepard Fairey has received some of the latest pressures brought on by those dead set on believing that their work is theirs. Before arguing if he is right in doing what he did though, I think it is first necessary to point out that it was not even the photographer of the picture who sued Fairey for property rights, but the newspaper that the photo was captured for. Considering that they had no creative "ownership" of the photograph, it seems odd to even think that they could feel they were cheated out of or imposed upon when Fairey decided to use this photograph in his work.
But obviously the real argument lies in Ownership of an original source, not who created it. Shepard Fairey, in my opinion, had every right to create and sell his interpretation of President Obama from the newspaper's photograph. Not only did he successfully bring his own creativity to the work, but I feel the subject matter plays an important role in this discussion. The argument revolves solely around the fact that he used this image as a reference for his work, but the image is of a political, public figure.
I hate to quote what I'm about to quote, but in the movie Ironman, one character says "You think just because you came up with an idea it makes it yours?" but i think his is very appropriate to this discussion. In today's digital world, the ownership of ideas is being tested every second. For clarification, I DO NOT agree with the quote and I do feel that artists are entitled to feel a sense of security in their productions. However I do think that many people lose site of the bigger picture, that creation is meant to inspire and not to be kept to yourself locked in a safe.
In my opinion, the greatest accomplishment for an artist would be to have their work sampled and used in another artists work, purely because that means that you have done something truly inspirational in all aspects of the word. The only issue I feel is appropriate to argue is recognition and accreditation of the original artist. If this is denied and they attempt to claim all credit for the origin of the work then that work HAS in fact been stolen.
Basically it boils down, in my opinion, to if the original author of a work is given credit for being the inspiration for a re-work. If credit is given then the re-work is completely in accordance with Fair Use and should be able to be used commercially. But if accreditation isn't given then this re-work has effectively stolen it's concept and tried to pass itself off as it's own work entirely.
(As a side note, ironically, Queen "Under Pressure" was just playing on my radio and all i could think about was back to a VH1 video of Vanilla Ice claiming that "Ice Ice Baby" was entirely original and his own work. This is a case where I would say the work was stolen, because recognition was not given where it was due.)
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