You’ll have to follow this link to look at the graphic becuase I can’t get it to show up in the blog body right now. In the graphic, to the left is the photo taken by Mannie Garcia for the Associated Press and to the right is Shepard Fairey’s hope poster.

Uncanny? You’re right, they’re the same image.

The popular street artist Shepard Fairey of OBEY fame filed a preemptive lawsuit earlier this month asking a federal judge to protect his popular Obama poster from claims of copyright violations from the Associated Press.

The AP believes Fairey’s work to be a knock-off and a clear copy of their picture taken in April 2006 of the then Illinois senator. Since claiming ownership to the photo they have attempted to have Fairey’s studio pay royalties on the image which has made him mucho dinero.

Fairey hopes the court will find his artistic interpretation of the image to be "fair use" of the image. They better, if they don’t Fairey could be in trouble because it seems like making artistic interpretations of other people’s work is pretty much his whole gig (as pointed out by this guy)

I think I’d give it to Shepard. I mean Obama’s tie is blue in the photo… Either way the pending AP lawsuit does seem a bit more plausable than the Pepsi logo thing.