It's Just So... ughhh, Tedious

So what do I do on a Monday morning when my brain is backfiring? I try, once again, to wrap my head around Fairey's legal wranglings with the AP. Yeesh.

It seems that in an inextricable series of mistrusting communications, the AP, as scared middleman, fucked things up. They're acting completely inconsistently and bullying both Garcia and Fairey. Garcia didn't even want to sue people over the situation, and didn't even know about the Fairey poster for quite awhile.

And that's my underlying issue and why I still don't get Fairey. He says he meant no disrepect for Garcia, justifying his position with the fact that Garcia is an Obama supporter too, and all Fairey wanted to do was help Obama's campaign. He even says he wouldn't've done anything differently on the off-chance he had a substantive impact on the campaign. Ego! Jeez. But Garcia didn't know about it! That's my point. Fairey knew, he knew enough to preemptively file to protect his fair use of the image before the AP filed any copyright claims against him. But he didn't clue Garcia in.

Garcia took the blasted photo!

I don't know, maybe it's touching on my own insecurities again of transformatively using the photographs of others to paint my portraits. Maybe it's the fact that the AP screwed things up communication-wise, between Fairey and Garcia. I don't know that I could determine the photographer for all the photos I've found on Google, the way Fairey found Garcia's photo. I really really tried after my last attempt to understand this issue. Now all the images for whom I found photographer credit have them listed as inspiration.

For instance, this image of David Bowie was taken by Mick Rock. He even has a David Bowie page on his site. The guy's a legend, having taken some AMAZING photos during the '70s, most of which would be perfect to use as inspiration for my portraits. I'm going to try to contact him. I'm not really expecting anything from the contact other than to hopefully just thank him.

I just don't want any middleman fucking up my communication with anybody relating to my Vinyl Art.

Peace.

David Bowie 05/18/09

I Can't See Clearly Enough To Paint

This, or she rather, is why (sheesh, even the camera forgot how to focus). Meet Nico, our 4th dog. Bailey, Cocoa, and Lucy, who can be seen in the first pictures here (taken by my wife by the way), are the other 3. Nico is a bluetick coonhound, named after Shannon Hoon's child (I'd love to paint Shannon on a Blind Melon album if anybody knows if any were ever pressed). So freakin' adorable. We're stopping at 4, figuring 2 big dogs per person is enough.

So we're on fragmented and less than optimal sleep. And we normally sleep a lot.

Another reason my vision's a little compromised is this deal with Shepard Fairey. If you know me, you know I'm not judgemental or pissed off very often. When I do get riled up, it's usually because I'm reacting to something about myself that the universe is reflecting back to me. In this case, it's my somewhat unresolved wonderings about the legality of what I do. Layered on top of my insecurity about cheating is the worry that I'm stealing. I don't like feeling like I'm doing something wrong. I go pale, get lightheaded and my feet feel like lead.

When I first started selling my Vinyl Art pieces, we consulted this book. It seemed reasonable that my work was transformative enough and didn't clash with the photographer's market, so the "fair use" claim would be valid. Fairey is pre-emptively suing the AP to get a judge to declare his use of the Obama photo to be "fair use". Suing.

Now I know, like I said in that first post about this issue, that I would be hard hard pressed to go an adversarial route in the courts, but it could come down to a third party's determination on a case-by-case basis whether my work constitutes "fair use". I decided to ask Tad Crawford, the author of that book and owner of the publishing company, what he thought, off the record. He responded, suggesting that I be as careful as I can and be prepared to pay permission fees.

So, I've taken this time while on puppy-watch to find the source of as many photos I've used as possible. In my online gallery, I've added appropriate credit to the ones I've dug up so far. I haven't found all, and some, like the John Lennon with the glasses, are so common that Warhol even used it for an album cover. I'm going to keep looking, and I'm going to hopefully go through my blog posts and add appropriate credits in the painting's description text. A lot of work, but I decided I'd feel better.

And that's the point. I want to feel good about what I do. I want to paint.

Peace.

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

Generation Of Change

With tears in my eyes watching the opening video of Oprah's show last night juxtaposing Obama and King, I realized why Shepard Fairey's campaign portrait should be in the National Portrait Gallery even before Obama took office. Hope is truly uplifting.

As those who were young back when MLK spoke his piece now take over policy, the generational impact of the civil rights movement can be sensed powerfully with all our senses. While we currently are most certainly a depressed country, both emotionally and economically, I hope we as individuals can generate more change as we recognize that without the individual there is no country. Yes, we can take responsibility for ourselves. Yes, we can create change based upon hope instead of fear. Yes we can.

Exciting day, huh?

Peace.