George W. Bush Used Top Google Results For All His Paintings; Will He Be Sued For Copyright Infringement?
from the w-is-an-appropriation-artist dept
You may have heard the recent stories about former President George W. Bush's new exhibit of paintings of world leaders. There's been plenty of chatter about the former President picking up painting as a hobby since leaving office. While many may have assumed that he used his experience in meeting with those world leaders in order to have an accurate representation of what they looked like, the truth is that he just pulled results from Google Image search result for each one. Literally. Some people have gone through and done Google Image searches on each of the subjects he painted, and discovered that the paintings were clearly all based on either the very first result, or very near the top search result.Many of those images are from Wikipedia, where they're under Creative Commons licensing, but others are clearly covered by copyright. As Animal New York notes, the image of former French President Jacques Chirac comes from a photo of the cover of Chirac's book cover, where the copyright on the photo is actually held by the Associated Press.
While the chances are minimal, it certainly would be interesting to have a case in which, of all people, George W. Bush, becomes the poster child for fair use.
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Filed Under: appropriation art, copyright, george w. bush, image search, paintings, photographs, shepard fairey
Companies: associated press
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Surely no other artist would do that
Oh yeah, almost forgot [/sarcasm]
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Re:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barack_Obama_%22Hope%22_poster#Origin_and_copyright_issues
The "hope" poster is a painting that resembles a picture taken by a reporter from AP. The result was, a civil lawsuit by AP against the artist that was settled after the judge noted that AP has a good chance of winning and a criminal lawsuit against the artists ended with 300 hours community service and a 25000$ fine.
All that for doing what bush did. When can we expect this copyright criminal to face justice as well?
Oh, I forgot, he belongs to the people in power the law only applies to the serfs...
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Really?
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Re: Really?
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Re: Really?
What did we get wrong in this article?
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fair's fair
But let's face it, if he weren't a former president of the United States, no one would ever have looked twice at these wretched paintings.
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Meritocracy, hah! Mediocracy, surely.
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Re: Meritocracy, hah! Mediocracy, surely.
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Re: Re: Meritocracy, hah! Mediocracy, surely.
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Copyright protection for a photograph extends only to those components of a work that are original to the author.
The subjects face or likeness is never "original" to the author (or photographer).
While the photographer does own the rights to redistribution of his actual photo, he does not ever own the likeness of a persons face so there is nothing illegal or even wrong in painting someone's face from someone else's photograph.
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I beg to differ, but you're entitled to your opinion.
Copyright protection for a photograph extends only to those components of a work that are original to the author.
Yes. But that includes framing and lighting. And the paintings copy that. So... But if you were to argue that they're fair use, we'd agree with you.
No one is saying that these are infringing. Just wondering if there's a lawsuit coming.
The subjects face or likeness is never "original" to the author (or photographer).
While the photographer does own the rights to redistribution of his actual photo, he does not ever own the likeness of a persons face so there is nothing illegal or even wrong in painting someone's face from someone else's photograph.
Yes. We agree. And yet, the AP still sued Shepard Fairey over the same damn thing. We agree that this shouldn't be infringing for all the reasons you say. But there have been identical lawsuits.
So why are you arguing with us?
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And yet, it wasn't the same thing. He didn't look at a picture and create a new work by himself, rather he tok the existing work and digitally manipulated it. The underlying work was still there.
Had he taken a pen and paper and drawn his own version of the original image and worked from there, he wouldn't have had the problems that he did.
The difference between his work and the painting by Bush is night and day unless (to quote you) "you squint and sneeze, you might sorta, kinda think maybe could be qualified" as the same.
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You're wrong. Both cases are nearly identical. Starting with an image found on Google search, a new image was painted.
Had he taken a pen and paper and drawn his own version of the original image and worked from there, he wouldn't have had the problems that he did.
Except, uh, you're wrong. That's exactly what Shepard Fairey did.
Either way, what you're claiming has no basis in copyright law. At all. So, try again.
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My understanding is that this work was created in photoshop or similar digital tools, using the original image as the source material. Can you provide something that shows this is not true? The original was made in a couple of hours on computer, if I get the story correct.
what you're claiming has no basis in copyright law
So you assertion is that using someone else's work, and modifying it digitally negates the copyright on it? Can you suggest how much is enough? When does it become truly transformative and not just derivative?
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But considering that you're the sort of jackass who thinks Prenda is enforcing copyright law, the above statement is a given.
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_You don't understand shit, horse with no name.
But considering that you're the sort of jackass who thinks Prenda is enforcing copyright law, the above statement is a given._
The above commentary was "censored" according to My_Name_Here; therefore he considers it true.
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even if true, What does the time frame that it took to create have to do with the creativity of the work.
Ever hear of transformative worl.
you are nothing but a Moron with no name
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Re: right on....
You've got it right !!! b.e. singer
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All presidents should paint a picture of the leaders he/she meets, even if it looks horrible. It would add a little more touch to politics.
But then, everyone would paint Putin and Obama with devil horns...
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I've seen babies draw better pictures with their poop.
The talent-less drooler should be in prison awaiting his trial.
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Don't forget George Zimmerman
Like them or not, Bush and Zimmerman deserve the same fair use protections as the rest of us.
http://techmediatainment.blogspot.com/2014/02/sourcing-photos-part-2-fair-use.html
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