Hope Poster Remake and Copyright

7th grade is still getting used to digital art and while most of the work we uses our own cameras, sometimes we need to look to the internet for sources and references. And while we talk about the public domain, copyright, trademark, and open source material, we also talk about copyright infringement.

And who makes for a better conversation than the ever enthralling story of Shepherd Fairey and the Hope poster.




Shepard Fairey is a self proclaimed Punk Rock artist. He worked our of skate park for a long time and became known for his OBEY stickers he would put all over town. All his work since them has included his signature that incorporates the OBEY stamp. 



However he made a fateful decision before a the Caucasus during the 2008 elections Shepherd made the "Hope" poster. Which is now know as the second most iconic work of political artwork of all time only surpassed by the "Uncle Sam wants you" Poster.


But after its viral popularity Mannie Garcia of the associated press realized that the picture of Obama looked just like a picture he took of Obama, and he was not given any credit, so he took Fairey to court in a copy right battle.

The judge was leaning more in favor of Shepherd Fairey, becasue his was was truly transformative, however near the end of the case an intern discovered Fairey had deleted details of how the image was collected. The judge then charged Fairey with evidence tampering, and the case was closed.

Fairey style is used and reused for many parody purposes, and it offers a great way to teach student a cautionary tail on copyright, and really it is better to be safe than sorry.


The Shepherd Fairy hope poster style is copied all the time as you can see in this interest Goku creation.


Shepherd Fairey is doing fine however, his fame from the Hope poster sky rocketed his career. He has just recently released a new series that is gaining political traction. His "We Are The People" series is very present in today's political atmosphere.




The students get to find or take images for the hope poster parody project. I show them how to search images from the creative commons. https://creativecommons.org/

Then we follow along with this style of hope poster design to create our images.

And here are a few of the final results!!

Enjoy

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