One Right, One Wrong

asks the right question which no pro-Fairey individual wants to answer (and answer honestly).

[A]ssume a well-known photographer creates an image the purpose of which is to move people, express some idea, touch our souls. Now along comes a crass commercial artist who makes modest changes to the image along the lines of what Fairey did here, and then starts mass producing and selling posters of it. Now we have a totally different purpose — to make boatloads of money. Fair use? Or is “transformation” a one-way street?

I would add that it wouldn’t necessarily have to be a “crass commercial artist,” but could simply be a corporation searching for advertising material, such as Apple did with Marclay’s video. It cuts both ways. If artists want carta blanca to do as they wish with other’s property, why shouldn’t the converse also hold true? What astounds me is how liberal “visual artists” are in their self-righteous entitlement to take any copyrighted material and use it as they see fit, yet when another commercial or non-commercial entity takes their work, they are quick to cry infringement. Transformative should cut both ways. Why should Mannie Garcia be granted less protection, or considered less of an artist, than Fairey?

Which is why Peter Schjeldahl is completely wrong for stating that “[a]s an art maven, I’m for granting artists blanket liberty to play with any existing image.” One, for the reason stated above: he grants a higher privilege to his version of artist than to the everyday creative individual. And two, what Schjeldahl and other non-artists fail to see are the negative repercussions stemming from training young artists to use Google images, rather than their imagination, to make art.