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.

Call of Duty Sells Billions : Makers Head to Court

Activision's wildly popular video game "Call of Duty: Black Ops" has streaked past the billion-dollar sales mark this month, but the gaming company may not have a lot to celebrate this Christmas.

Activision has been in a pitched battled with "Call of Duty" developers since April, and on Tuesday, the company pulled another player, Electonic Arts, into the lawsuit. The developers, Jason West and Vincent Zampella, had created Activision's blockbuster Call of Duty franchise as heads of Infinity Ward, a studio Activision bought in 2003.

In the amended lawsuit, Activision names EA as a defendant, accusing the Redwood City, Calif., publisher of hatching a secret plot to "destabilize, disrupt and ... destroy Infinity Ward." The lawsuit accused EA of working through talent management firm Creative Artists Agency to "hijack" West and Zampella from Infinity Ward, based in Encino.

'Millionaire' Creators Win $319m Verdict Against Disney

A federal district court judge in Riverside on Tuesday denied the Walt Disney Co.'s attempts to overturn a verdict awarding $319 million in damages and interest to the creators of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire," reports the Los Angeles Times.

Judge Virginia Phillips denied Disney's motions seeking to throw out the jury's July verdict or to order a new trial in the 6-year-old dispute. Disney has 30 days in which to appeal the decision.

The British creators of the game show, Celador International, sued Disney in 2004, claiming it had been denied its ability to profit from the success of the game show, which aired on the entertainment giant's ABC network for three years, beginning in the summer of 1999. Celador argued that a series of "sweetheart deals" struck among a clutch of Disney-owned companies kept the show in the red, even as it became ABC's first No. 1 show in more than a decade.

Celador had asked the jury to award damages of up to $395 million, based on experts' estimates of the profit "Millionaire" would have generated had the network paid a fair-market price. The jury awarded slightly less -- $260 million in network fees and $9.2 million in money owed from the sale of related merchandise.

Legal Jobs Decline for Second Straight Month

Despite upbeat forecasts earlier this week, the monthly employment report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows slower than expected growth in the private sector, and a significant drop in jobs in the legal sector.

The report, released Friday, shows that the legal services sector lost 1,100 jobs in November after experiencing a drop in October, as well. Those losses come at a time when many analysts were expecting healthy growth. The New York Times reports that an increase of 150,000 jobs had been the consensus prediction. More.