Plaintiffs have profited from the sales of Mr. Garcia’s copyrighted photograph image and Defendant AP seeks to reap some of the profit by claiming that it – and not Mr. Garcia – is the rightful owner of the copyright in the photograph.
A legal memorandum in support of photographer Manuel Garcia • Regarding Fairey v. Associated Press, i.e. the legal battle over the iconic Obama “Hope” poster. For those not in the loop, Shepard Fairey did an immaculate illustration based on a photo Garcia shot and AP ran on the wire. After it blew up, AP sued Fairey, who claimed fair use. Now, Garcia’s claiming neither of them have the right to claim that photo as theirs. We agree that Garcia has a claim over this, but point out that if you look on Getty Images, Obama has literally hundreds of photos taken of him each week (and in April of 2006 alone, he showed up on Getty 41 times) – a fact which we think dilutes both his and AP’s claims. He’s a famous person who gets photographed a lot. Fairey just grabbed a random photo. • source