Iconic image in copyright wrangle
AP story as reported in NZ Herald,Friday Feb 06, 2009


The photo of Barack Obama taken for AP by Manny Garcia and the campaign image created by Shepard Fairey. Photo / AP


On buttons, posters and websites, the image was everywhere during the presidential campaign: a pensive Barack Obama looking upwards, as if to the future, splashed in a Warholesque red, white and blue and underlined with the caption HOPE.
Designed by Shepard Fairey, a Los Angeles street artist, the image has led to sales of hundreds of thousands of posters and stickers and has become so much in demand that copies signed by Fairey have been purchased for thousands of dollars on eBay.

The image, Fairey has acknowledged, is based on an Associated Press photograph, taken in April 2006 by Manny Garcia on assignment at the National Press Club.
The AP says it owns the copyright, and wants credit and compensation. Fairey disagrees.
"We believe fair use protects Shepard's right to do what he did here," says Fairey's lawyer, Anthony Falzone.
Fair use is a legal concept that allows exceptions to copyright law, based on, among other factors, how much of the original is used, what the new work is used for and how the original is affected by the new work.
- AP