Shepard Fairey arrested in Boston...

[monmouth]

Artist of famed Obama poster arrested in Boston
Published: 2/7/09, 11:05 AM EDT

BOSTON (AP) - Police in Boston say the artist famous for his "Hope" posters of President Obama has been arrested on outstanding warrants.

Shepard Fairey was in Boston on Friday for his new exhibit at the Institute of Contemporary Art.

Police Officer James Kenneally says the department had Jan. 24 warrants alleging the Los Angeles artist tagged property with graffiti.

Fairey's Obama image has been sold on thousands of stickers and posters. It is the subject of a copyright dispute with The Associated Press. Fairey argues that his use of the AP photo is protected by "fair use," which allows exceptions to copyright laws

[Tangerine LaBamba]

1. This stinks

That poster has been out there for years, and now the AP goes ballistic about it?

Nothing was said until the original was donated to the National Portrait Gallery, it seems.

The AP should be ashamed of itself. This just sucks.

[chelsea0011]

6. Oh, I don't know. He was on the Colbert Report and said that he

doesn't profit from the poster but will go after others who try to profit. So what is the difference with AP wanting compensation for their image? There's really nothing new here. Andy warhol, I read today, had issues with Campbell's Soup. Also, he does profit from the image.

[chelsea0011]

2. "Outstanding warrents" was the reason. Have they released the what the warrents were?

[lurky]

4. It says "grafitti".

[lurky]

3. Does he actually paste up his own posters?

I always figured his fans did that, since he has stuff in every major city in the U.S. Hell, there's even a 4-foot Andre the Giant face on the service door to my apartment building. He couldn't possibly be single-handedly spreading his work, could he?

[aikoaiko]

13. He used to.

I don't know now.

[Starry Messenger]

5. That's lame.

Hopefully this will get straightened out. Shep is hardly some little punk tagger.

[Peace Patriot]

7. The Boston police have nothing better to do than hunt down an artist on a Los Angeles

graffiti warrant?

Something wrong here. They were gunning for him.

I don't call AP the "Associated Pukes" for nothing.

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. I had same thought.

Glad to see there is such little crime in Boston that the police have time for a graffiti warrant.

[htuttle]

10. Big city police departments routinely ignore out-of-state warrants for misdemeanors

Misdemeanor warrants from out of state don't always even show up unless they go searching for them.

It's going to cost an enormous amount of money for Boston to even process this warrant, and the fine is probably less than $200. It's a bit like arresting someone for a parking ticket in a different city.

So yes, they were probably gunning for him.

[petronius]

11. The warrants are from Massachusetts (the artist is from LA)

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/02/07/street_artist_arrested_on_way_to_event_at_ica/

My (wild-assed) guess is the Boston cops were stirred up by the folks who disliked the idea of a street artist being a museum subject...

[underseasurveyor]

9. As asinine a situation SF finds himself in

The idiots at AP and now the Boston PD are only giving Shepard more exposure. I'm thinking this will play out well for SF in the end.

Talk radio and tv shows.... :-)
People will want to hear about the guy that was sued over a poster of HOPE.

[lies and propaganda]

12. as much as i love the guy and Phenomenology

and as much as I have pasted up his art work my self... it is illegal.

Just because he did an awesome rendition of a photo of our Pres doesnt mean a dickhead cop is going to be anything less then what they are trained to do.

It will just make him all the more notorious

[Peace Patriot]

16. The Associated Pukes want you to think it's "illegal"--but is it?

First of all, the photo was taken by a stringer, not an AP photographer. Second, there is the right of artistic interpretation, commentary, analysis, and parody in using public images and making reference to copyrighted works. That fine line will be determined, not by fairness, but by who has the best paid lawyers, and by Bushbot judges. The Associated Pukes are way out of line, on this one, using their untoward power over media and government to persecute a street artist. Ever seen the cartoon "Bambi Meets Godzilla"? (It's very short.) Fucking mafia news monopoly! They not only lie and disinform and act as a government/corporate propaganda machine, they want to copyright the fucking world.

The scale of the muscle being used, vs the object of their persecution is ridiculous. This is corporate bullshit. ME BIG GODZILLA. ME SQUISH LITTLE NOBODY. SPLAT!

Let me give you an example of how bad corporate bullshit has gotten. In the FLA-13 Congressional election, in 2006, ES&S voting machines 'disappeared' 18,000 votes in Democratic areas, in an election that the Puke 'won' by only some 350 votes. When the lawyers for the real winner, Christine Jennings, took the matter to court and asked to review ES&S's 'TRADE SECRET,' PROPRIETARY programming code--to try to find out what happened to those 18,000 votes--ES&S refused, and argued that their 'right' to profit from our elections trumps the right of the voters to know how their votes were counted. And instead of laughing this absurd corporate claim out of his courtroom, the Bushbot judge agreed with ES&S!

There went our right to vote--right there.

Corporatons determine what is legal and what is not legal--in their own interest. If Bush-Cheney give them gazillions of dollars, and Bush-Cheney torture prisoners, then torture is legal for them--as is their gazillion thefts from the taxpayers' coffers. If corporations spy on all Americans, and that it is illegal, it is made legal because corporations did it. If you or I did it, we would be in jail. Corporate lawyers write our laws!

Corporations should have no rights. They are NOT persons. They are business consortiums, licensed by the PEOPLE. That they would be attacking our very right to vote--and taking it away--or picking on some street artist for an image of the president that everyone loves, and that has spread all over the world like "Che" t-shirts (the artist for which never asked for a penny from anybody!) are symptoms of our enslavement to the Corporate Rulers--our status as the peons and cannon fodder in a country that we hardly recognize any more, it is so oppressed by the super-rich and what Franklin Delano Roosevelt called "organized money."

[aikoaiko]

14. He'll pay a nice fine, increase his "gallery street cred", sell more posters, and all will be well.

This is a win-win situation.

[Nevernose]

15. He gets arrested all the time

He's used to it, and it's good for his business.