d’Arte Board

I am not a lawyer and this should not be construed as legal advice, however, when it comes to defending yourself in a high profile Copyright Infringement case, willfully destroying evidence is probably NOT the way to go with it.

Shepard Fairey, creator of the formerly ubiquitous “Hope” posters of Obama (now ubiquitously re-appropriated for ironic use), has been sued by the Associated Press for using a photo they own the rights to to create his image. One of the questions of fact was the exact image he used.

Well apparently Fairey figured out the AP was right on this issue “early on in the case” and subsequently “submitted false images and deleted other images” to avoid copping to this fact.

Again, I’m no lawyer, but in legal parlance I believe this is called, “Stupid.” Whatever the merits of his original defense, Fairey has now admitted to what sounds like evidence tampering or worse. I don’t know if charges are being brought against him for such things, but subjecting yourself to potential further jail time and/or fines in addition to the trouble you’re already in is rarely a good idea.

Especially since, in my considerable ignorance regarding this case, I don’t see how this specific dispute over which photo was used matters to the overarching point. If, as he’s claiming, he is protecting the higher principle of fair use here, why act illegally in an attempt to weasel out of the true fight on a technicality?

Now he’s made himself look slimy and destroyed his credibility. While I’m not exactly on the side of the AP no-fun machine on this fight, it’s clear that Fairey is a pretty weak champion for the cause.

I wish Jeff Koons would swoop in and save the day…

-JD

This entry was posted on October 20, 2009 at 5:54 pm and is filed under Art with tags Art, copyright, obama hope, shephard fairey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.