AP Turns the Screws Into Shepard Fairey for Obama "Hope" Poster

Major Headache from Mainstream News --Again?

Associated Press claims victory in Shepard Fairey case without much ground to stand on.

18th century sculptor's mortuary statue seems to know the feeling of being boxed in by the oligarchy of the major news sources.

Picture allowed via Creative Commons license. No support of nor further contribution to this blog by photographer/artist implied. Thanks to "Tim Green aka atoach" at flickr.com. Click on picture to go to original site and for link to options on different sizes. Rollover picture for further attribution.

Bloggers take action.  See bottom for what we can do to help Mr. Fairey and ourselves to be able to continue to act independently.

Funny, how the AP is now working like an arm of the Republican party.

But then reading many of their articles, one can see why that might be. The AP's rightward tilt has been noted before.

But again, the attack against Mr. Fairey follows a pattern of retribution against those who help the Democratic party, especially the middle or liberal side of it.  I doubt that Senator Baucus supporters get harassed.

Greg Mitchell in "UPDATED: Surprising Developments in AP vs. Shepard Fairey Case" takes pains to note that the AP is "Not for Profit", apparently relying on the stupidity of the American populace (or the stupidity that mainstream believes is it's main feature). Many partisan organizations both acknowledged and unacknowledged (like the supposedly non-partisan US Chamber of Commerce) act as tools for right wing causes, if only for the money backing such efforts.

Mitchell has a link to the LA Times blog that is covering Mr Fairey's case, probably via his statement on his blog (link below, At Mitchell's blog or at LA Times site).  Funny, but if Tribune company CEO Sam Zell's and AP's fantasies were granted, the Time's linking to Fairey's blog w/o permission and payment would be a copyright infringement.

The AP report (also available by link at GM's blog) starts right out with a very biased statement (in support of guess what news organization. They claim that Shepard Fairey's admission destroy his case, which they don't.  The AP assertions and previous actions have destroyed my trust in their news organization though.

So it's small wonder that the AP is playi ng the "destroy the Democrats" game.  And, of course, after years of studying how greed has been ding mainstream news, (though I also have doubts about mainstream news of earlier decades including the "golden age" of the era encompassing WW2 through the Vietnam War), I ask myself why I would begin to be surprised that street artist who created the iconic Obama Hope poster would be destroyed by news giant AP.

At least Martha Stewart had money to fight her case.

We need to help Fairey or we might as well close up shop.  

The worst people buy up congressional representatives and senators and use them to extract ever more money from the working people.  If right wing entities or money seeking organizations are allowed to also destroy anyone who takes time or makes an effort to support liberal causes, the circle will be closed.  

 I don't see any plea for monetary help for legal expenses at Mr. Fairey's blog, Obey , but there are opportunities to buy his book and other items.  There might be a call for support later too.

Past statements on copyright infringement from various news sources shows that Fairey appears to be correct that the picture he used for his posters was changed enough to evade copyright protection, but the law usually follows Big Money.   

It will not be good for bloggers either if this sets a new precedence.  Mainstream news has been trying to get just about any talk about the news to be declared as a copyright violation.  

The political right wing would also be a primary gainer from such an outcome as well.

I have no connection with Mr. Fairey except that I live along with 17.6 million others in the Greater Los Angeles area which has been reported to also be where his home is at.

If Mr. Shepard loses, maybe he should go after all the publications that showed his poster for some money, or maybe they should just start paying now, if they don't want 1984ish versions of copyright laws enforced.

 Paste magazine might also owe Mr. Fairey money for their Obamicon Yourself site as may everyone who used it.  (Plunk him down a Franklin, okay?)

And I love how the news from the AP and Tribune company to TV can use anyone's information they can extract from any source, from your neighbors to "our"  government and get freebies from the Republican party then claim copyright on it and impartiality in publishing it while making billions producing it.

Note to Bloggers and Social Media Users:

We, at the least, need to defend Shepard Fairey in our works and with our outrage.  An outcry has mitigated grossly overplayed lawsuits before. We could find ourselves up on the same scaffold he has been placed on if we let the oligarchs whether on the right or the left to determine how much of our news they own.

If we don't become outraged we could find ourselves being charged thousands for each time we linked to a news report in our Twitter streams of on our Facebook decks, or wrote a piece about a news report on our blogs, no matter if we make sure to hand off the reader to the original source full story.

Even non bloggers need to be concerned.  The former copyright protected oligarchic system of news distribution led to the horrors of the Vietnam war, where young men left their homes when the draft notice showed up to become killers and even to die because that's what they were "supposed to do". 

If we want to go back to those days, we'd better think again.  The new draft plans since the Bush administration revised them are to register everyone up to age 35 of both sexes with no exemptions for education, marriage, children.  Experts also say that if a new military venture is "needed" a draft will be necessary.  As we watch the same BS appear over attacking Iran as we saw about Iraq, we need to be frightened if only for our kids and grandkids, and work all methods for keeping out of that scenario.

tags: shepard fairey  associated press  greg mitchell  mainstream news media  los angeles times  sam zell  copyright protection  

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