Trust In Art

Creatives should respect each other. Tom Jones sings other people's songs. The albums credit the songwriters and publishers. Simple. It's called not stealing. How can someone who truly believes in creativity choose not to willingly give credit where due? If anybody'd follow the ol' golden rule, I'd think it'd be people who supposedly create personal expressions for public presentation.

A very cool cat wrote about Fairey's Obama campaign image and the legal dispute between the AP, who owns the original photograph that Fairey manipulated into the now incredibly famous image, and the artist. Fairey redily admits that he used the image, but won't give credit substantively. Nice. Nice message.

Now, legally, I know I'm ok doing what I do vis-a-vis the photographer and publisher because I'm not infringing on the right or ability of the image copyright owner to sell and reproduce for sale the original image. Fairey took some else's photo and directly and indirectly created and reproduced products for sale and claims it's ok under the guise of political action. True, the AP hadn't used the image themselves, but Fairey did find it online, so it was published. True, the AP is only taking reactionary measures now that the image is part of pop culture, but there's no time restriction to contest a copyright violation.

Is it fair use though? Well, Fairey's done it many times, trying to make money behind a thinly veiled attempt at social commentary, and not giving credit. It's called give and take. He's even copyrighted his own images that blatantly use someone else's with simply his famous "OBEY" logo on it for mass reproduction. Nice. Way to be.

Now it may be that Fairey has not yet financially profitted from the image directly. Then it would fall to those who are, like the publisher who included the poster image in a book about the campaign, to compensate the AP. It's just a mess that wouldn't have been created if he'd been upfront.

Any photographer or publisher who has a problem with my painting a portrait based on their photo, I'll respect to the utmost. I'll credit them, stop painting that specific portrait, license it, whatever within reason. Not because what I'm doing is wrong. Because giving due credit is right.

Peace.

Tom Jones 02/06/09