Copyright Issues

Last week we continued to look at the issues surrounding the origin of artworks and the controversy over ownership of them. One particular artist who provides an excellent example of this is Shepard Fairey. Shepard Fairey is an artist famous for his unique and original style that has been seen worldwide across everything from tapestries to brick walls to t-shirts. His most well-known work is the famous Barack Obama campaign poster. When we watched him as a guest on the Colbert Report a lot of interesting points were brought up. There is no clear cut answer as to who has ownership over the piece since there have been no copyrights on it. Is it the amateur photographer who took the original photo that Shepard Fairey edited? Is it Shepard Fairey himself? Is it President Obama, the subject of the work? I find it fascinating how much of a gray area there is when it comes to ownership over work such as this. Personally I think that Shepard Fairey changed the original photo enough to gain ownership over it. However being that he does not want to seek a copyright of it and specifically said that it belongs to the Obama administration, I think it belongs to the administration. I have also learned that if I put anything on the internet that I do not want other people to alter or claim ownership over, I should put a copyright on it.

Who Owns Your Pictures?

In class the other day we looked at some interesting stories related to copyright issues in terms of photography. For example, a young girl named Alison Chang had a picture of her taken and uploaded to Flickr. This photo then became an advertising campaign for Virgin Mobile, without the consent of Alison or her parents. The case addresses the interesting debate over who owns the rights to pictures that are posted to the internet for public viewing. I believe that pictures with no copyright are fair game if they are significantly manipulated. If they are not changed in any way, they should not be available for commercial use without the consent of whoever posted them.