Barack Obama
AP

AP says Shepard Fairey's Obama poster infringes copyright

Obama

On buttons, posters and Web sites, the image was everywhere during last year’s presidential campaign: A pensive Barack Obama looking upward, as if to the future, splashed in a Warholesque red, white and blue and underlined with the caption HOPE.

Designed by Shepard Fairey, a Los-Angeles based street artist, the image has led to sales of hundreds of thousands of posters and stickers, has become so much in demand that copies signed by Fairey have been purchased for thousands of dollars on eBay.

The image, Fairey has acknowledged, is based on an Associated Press photograph, taken in April 2006 by Manny Garcia on assignment for the AP at the National Press Club in Washington.

The AP says it owns the copyright, and wants credit and compensation. Fairey disagrees. [Yahoo News]

In related news, Shepard is appearing at Coachella, he did some work for N.A.S.A., he made a Bad Brains poster, and he recently appeared on the Charlie Rose show. Video below…