...

 

Designed by Shepard Fairey, a Los-Angeles based street artist, the image has led to sales of hundreds of thousands of posters and stickers, has become so much in demand that copies signed by Fairey have been purchased for thousands of dollars on eBay.

 

The image, Fairey has acknowledged, is based on an Associated Press photograph, taken in April 2006 by Manny Garcia on assignment for the AP at the National Press Club in Washington.

 

The AP says it owns the copyright, and wants credit and compensation. Fairey disagrees.

...

 

"We believe fair use protects Shepard's right to do what he did here," says Fairey's attorney, Anthony Falzone, executive director of the Fair Use Project at Stanford University and a lecturer at the Stanford Law School. "It wouldn't be appropriate to comment beyond that at this time because we are in discussions about this with the AP."

 ...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090204/ap_en_ot/obama_poster

Ok... well this is a pretty old link, but I have to post it.

Fairey's whole career is based on ripping other work off and passing it as his own..

But in the design world most people operate the same way.

He struck it big so he has a brighter light on him.

"Good artists copy, great artists steal" - Pablo Picasso.