In Fairey or Not? I took a look at the controversy over the use by artist Shepard Fairey’s who clearly based a poster of Obama on a photograph by AP photographer, Manny Garcia, using the work without permission or payment.
I’ve quite a few times been paid by artists who wished to base their works on my pictures, so I have some personal interest in the practice continuing. Recently Dan Heller has posted a lengthy reply on his Photography Business blog to law professor Peter Friedman’s article Ruling Imagination: Law and Creativity which asserts that Fairey had copied nothing that could be copyrightable. Both pieces are worth reading.
There are many aspects where copyright law – in the UK as well as the US – lacks clarity both as to its intention as well as its application.