Was there any doubt at any moment that Shepard Fairey was not forthcoming in the use of Associated Press freelancer Manny Garcia’s picture of Obama?
It’s probably easy to do, find a picture online open it in some image editing software, change some colors and viola, it’s original art again.
It’s similar to those DJs who remix and then make it their own, isn’t it?
I’ll let you read how Fairey tries to explain away his faux pas.
Still he is trying to maintain that it’s fair use. I would agree there but dude, in the spirit of artists everywhere, you brought bad karma on yourself, so in principle you shouldn’t prevail in your lawsuit.
Here’s my previous post of the Fairey vs. Garcia copyright issue.