During the last presidential campaign, graphic artist Shepard Fairey "appropriated" an image made by photographer Mannie Garcia for use as the main element in his now iconic Obama hero poster. At this point the whole incident is a muddled mess, but there are a few things that we do know.
Neither Fairey's name recognition nor his bank account suffered from his thievery.
Instead of being shunned, Fairey was embraced by the campaign when they paid to print and distribute the poster around the country.
Fairey was also embraced by the art world when museums and galleries hurried to purchase and exhibit/sell the various printings of the poster.
As a result, both the ownership of the image and the definition of "fair use" are subjects of much debate and will be decided in a courtroom (or two) at some point.
Now we have a second controversy involving a stolen image of the President. Unlike the first, this image was used in a less flattering manner. In it, we see the young Obama smoking a joint under the slogan "Yes we cannabis" (a pun on his campaign slogan "Yes we can").
Let me be clear, I don't support the stealing of anyone's work. I would however like to point out what I think is a important difference in the two situations.
The Bill of Rights prohibits congress from making laws restricting the freedom of speech. It follows, that only political speech that is unflattering to those in power is in need of this protection.
In his book "Dreams From My Father" our President admitting using marijuana in the past. A fact that (when compared to the previous two winning presidential campaigns, Clinton and Bush) received no attention from the media whatsoever.
Heck, the image in question is the only one I've ever seen published of the President smoking. How'd the smoking habit not become a campaign issue?
So, although this image was stolen, we have political speech happening here that is using parody to call attention to an apparent hypocrisy which is unflattering to those in power and to those who helped suppress this information.
Fairey's work is celebrated, the NORML poster not so much (except maybe among the hopped-up, hippie crowd).
It seems to me that this is a pretty good example of protected speech.
Isn't photography speech?
Isn't it OK to quote someone like Rush Limbaugh when you are arguing against something he said?
Truthfully, I don't quite know the answer to these questions. It seems to me that we're already slipping down this slope.
The sad/funny part of course is that both Fairey and the NORML folks could have properly licensed these images for a tiny amount of money. According to this report, the average licensing fee from Getty, who markets the Obama smoking pictures, is about $25.
Or, if that price is too high, maybe the A.P/Fairey/Mannie Garcia case will make it all the way to the Supreme Court. At which point we can expect the stolen image to be priced at about seven bucks.
