After reading the suggested articles posted in the assignment I found them to be very similar but each story focused on different aspects of same issue. The article on the
Tech Dirt I found to be very helpful because it describe what the issue was and how this issue came about. After being able to understand the situation it helped me be able to raise my own opinion of the issue. After reading
Today's article on the
Obama Poster Infringement Copyright I felt that their opinion was similar on how I was felt about this whole case.
I have mixed feelings about this case because the photographer, Mannie Garcia who took that photo said he owned copyright but if he did he shouldn't have made it easy to gain access of the original photo. He should of imprinted his name somewhere in the photo or not make it accessible through google. If Mannie wanted the public to be able to view his work but put some kind of limitation on the photo, that's where it would of been a good idea to get a creative commons license so then situations like this one doesn't become an issue. If the original creator added a creative commons license this would of saved Mannie lots of stress and lawyer fees. I think Mannie is more about the publicity, the attraction that drew folks to this photo was when Shepard Fairey got his hands wrapped around the original and took the photo and made it his personal art. As it stats in the
Today's Article that the photo intention wasn't for commercial use it was political. Out of respect, yes Shepard Fairey should of gave him some credit for taking the photo.
I have now realized that copyright laws and different licensing is important because of these types of issues. Obviously people post there work all over the web and it's that easy to turn it into your own. I believe not one or the other is at fault but if the original creator puts some kind of copyright then it wouldn't allow the public to do these sort of things and plus they would have evidence to back up there own work. Just having the creator take the initiative and extra time to make sure their work is safe from other's making it their own will benefit them in the long run. Shepard Fairey should of known better because of being a artist he must know the rules of plagiarism, which is taking someone else's work. Even though he turned the photo in his own type of art work, the original photo wasn't his and used someone else's work to create his own. What he should of done was if he knew he wanted to make a public political piece he should of done his own research and got a hold of Mannie for permission and gave him half the credit. Related issues in past is what helped create the copyright laws and licencing so someone couldn't take credit for someone else's work.
The way this case worked is Manny Garcia was employed by Associated Press (AP), thus any photos he took at that even were the property of his employer. They were published under the AP credit, thus AP clearly was the owner. Fairey filtched the photo from online without asking anyone for permission to use it as a source of his poster art. All that might have been okay except he created nationally recognized iconic art with the photo and, the worse thing, then sold the posters and shirts, made a profit. This is where AP stepped in, 1) because his poster became iconic, 2) because he was selling the image over and over again. Whether he donated the money to the Obama campaign or not (his version of the story) isn't really relevant as he used someone else's copyrighted work to make a profit. The real question is did he alter the image enough to make it a unique personal expression (personally, I think yes).
ReplyDeleteI agree with what you say about doing research first. If he has of taken some time to find out if it was okay to use the picture for his piece, which it probably would have been he would have avoided a whole mess of controversy about the piece and the laws that protect other peoples pictures/work on the web. It is very easy for others to make things on the internet their own just by tweaking a few things but it my opinion it still in some part belongs to the person who originally created it, or in this case the person who captured the photo.
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