Artist Behind Obama 'HOPE' Poster Pleads Guilty
Friday, February 24, 2012
The artist who created President Barack Obama's famous "HOPE" campaign poster pleaded guilty to criminal contempt on Friday in New York City.
Shepard Fairey, 42, faces a maximum term of six months in prison and a maximum term of supervised release of one year. He could also face a monetary fine.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said that Fairey "went to extreme lengths to obtain an unfair and illegal advantage in his civil litigation, creating fake documents and destroying others in an effort to subvert the civil discovery process."
The case against Fairey started after he admitted that he had fabricated information in a lawsuit he brought against The Associated Press in 2009. In that case, he had sought a court declaration that he did not violate AP's copyrights when he used an AP photo of Obama as a reference of the image in the poster. The AP countersued saying the uncredited, uncompensated use of the picture did violate copyright laws. That case was settled last year.
Fairey, who lives in Los Angeles, will be sentenced on July 16.
With the Associated Press
Comments [4]
This is why cooperations shouldn't make copyright laws. Any artist can see this isn't a violation. He took something and changed it into something else yet they are pretending he's somehow ripped off the photographer. No one lost here. The photographer got payed for his photo Shepard got payed for his posters and Obama got to be president.
Let him go.
When law seems to be outlaw...
this is absurd. this is political. this is petty. this is idiotic.
leave the artist alone.
I am an artist, and am working on a art history minor at the moment, so Fairey's case has always hit close to home for me. The use of reference material should never be a crime. The definition of the word rennasounce means to re-work a previous form. To make such things illigal would effectives help put a "cork" on culture in my opinion. Why is every one who has ever made a remix of a song not being charged? It is the artists job to reflect his or her culture. Nothing should ever be done to slow that down. As far as altering documents he will burn for that but my point is it should have never gotten to that in the first place.
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