Below is the text of the post I made to the Love Unites Contest Article and which $spyed posted to the HQ Group:

You can hold whatever opinion you want about Shepard Fairey but the bottom line is that he is an extraordinarily accomplished graphic artist dedicated to political and social activism. His poster for Obama is one of the most extraordinary and dramatic contributions of graphic art as an agent for change and it was one of the engines that drove Obama's successful campaign to become the first African American President.

Artists are people, people make mistakes. Shepard Fairey may have made his share. His art is highly controversial just like Andy Warhol, and Roy Lichtenstein, Jeff Koons, etc. and make no mistake this is the caliber of artist we are talking about.

Shepard's art is in every major contemporary art museum in the United States. His portrait of Obama hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. His achievements in the arts are many.

I'm not saying he's right or wrong, or will win or lose his law suit; I am saying he is an artist of distinction. We are a great art community. And he should feel welcomed here.

I can also say that deviantART has been in touch with top copyright lawyers about the Shepard Fairey law suit involving the AP photo of Obama and an analysis of the law of copyright in that case strongly suggests that Shepard's use of the photograph is called "Fair Use." That doesn't mean he didn't use the photograph, but it does mean that copyright law permits that kind of use. He is now represented by the top copyright professor at Harvard University Law School which is the top law school in the United States. The professor is representing Shepard without charge. Presumably he believes he will win the case.

What does this mean for deviants who are deeply concerned about art theft?

It means you should pay very close attention to the Shepard Fairey
case and how it works its way through the courts, much like we will be.

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As an update, a deviant posted a link to the N.Y.Times article a few weeks ago reporting that Shepard Fairey admitted that he told the other side in the lawsuit that he used a different reference photograph than the one he actually used. [link]

My response to the posting of that article was this:

Should you read the article all the way through you will find support for the position that the use of the photograph was, nonetheless, fair use. Your choice here is to support an artist's use of a reference image to obtain the outline of a public figure's public face (you can't copyright a face or any of its attributes if they are the natural attributes of a face you did not pose or light yourself)or to support a corporate owner of an essentially interchangeable news photograph, the Associated Press. Probably best to let the courts decide this before jumping one way or the other. It's complicated. By the way, the photographer joined the lawsuit to say that the Associated Press doesn't have the rights to sue Fairey for this but that he does!