An unfortunate development in Shepard Fairey's court battle with the A.P. over copyright infringement. Fairey has claimed throughout his case that he used a photo of Obama and George Clooney as the source material for his Hope poster, not a photograph of just Obama, as the A.P. has argued. He admitted last week that he did indeed use the latter. I can only gather he lied because he believed the act of cropping aided his fair use argument. But fair use is judged according to whether an artist/designer has changed Object A into a totally new Object B; the techniques by which this is or is not accomplished are important details but not necessarily the crux. In theory Fairey's lie shouldn't affect his argument, but it does reflect badly on his character and in turn could generate negative connotations about fair use amongst the general public. Here's to hoping it doesn't.
Read Fairey's Statement here: http://obeygiant.com/headlines/associated-press-fair-use-case