Obama's Hope Poster Creator Settles Lawsuit with AP

Earlier this moth, Shepard Fairey, the artist behind the iconic Barack Obama "Hope" poster, agreed to settle a fair use claim he filed against Associated Press (AP). The news organization, whose work-for-hire photographer in 2006 had snapped the image Fairely used to stencile his posters, took legal action against Fairey in 2009, long after the image became the symbol of Obama's campaign message and of victory, for copyright infringement in 2009.

Fairey's design was created in one day and printed first as a poster. Fairey sold 350 of the posters on the street immediately after printing them. It was then more widely distributed—both as a digital image and other paraphernalia—during Obama's campaign. The image became one of the most widely recognized symbols of Obama's campaign message, spawning many variations and imitations, including some commissioned by the Obama campaign. This led The Guardian's Laura Barton to proclaim that the image "acquired the kind of instant recognition of Jim Fitzpatrick's Che Guevara poster, and is surely set to grace T-shirts, coffee mugs and the walls of student bedrooms in the years to come."

In January 2009, after Obama had won the election, Fairey's stenciled portrait version of the image was acquired by the Smithsonian Institution for its National Portrait Gallery.

Last year, the New York Times reports, Fairey admitted that he had misstated which A.P. photo he had used for the Obama image and that he had submitted false images and deleted others to conceal his actions, leading to a criminal investigation in addition to the civil case. Fairey originally said that he had used a photograph from an April 27, 2006, event at the National Press Club in Washington, where Obama was seated next to the actor George Clooney. Instead, the photograph he used was from the same event, but was a solo image of Mr. Obama’s head. The photograph was taken by Mannie Garcia for The A.P.

Fairey said that he had initially believed that The A.P. was wrong about which photo he had used, but later realized that the agency was right.

In settling the civil lawsuit, “The A.P. and Mr. Fairey have agreed that neither side surrenders its view of the law,” The A.P. said in a statement on Wednesday. “Mr. Fairey has agreed that he will not use another A.P. photo in his work without obtaining a license from The A.P. The two sides have also agreed to work together going forward with the ‘Hope’ image and share the rights to make the posters and merchandise bearing the ‘Hope’ image and to collaborate on a series of images that Fairey will create based on A.P. photographs.” The statement added that the two sides had agreed to “financial terms that will remain confidential.” More.