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Obama “Hope” Poster

Remember this image from 2008?

Obama/Hope

“It’d be hard not to. That image was so iconic in 2008 that I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it had been rendered in Braille so that even the blind could “see” how awesome the Obama-messiah was. At the very least, the image is an excellent example of political propaganda artwork. It creator, Shepard Fairey, has a long history of making hip, cool, and striking images in this style. He first came to prominence back in the early 90’s with his “Obey” and

“Giant” series of posters which he had pasted on any surface they could stick to.

The irony of such a hip, cool, cutting edge, counter-culturalist and anti-establishment “urban propaganda” artist selling out by producing such a mainstream political poster as the Obama “Hope” design was a wonderful thing to contemplate.

Now it turns out that the good Mr. Fairey stole that image. Worse, he turns out to have lied about doing so and hidden the evidence of that so as to avoid being prosecuted for copyright violation. Yes, copyright violation. You see, Mr. Fairey copyrighted that image as his own. And he has made a tidy sum from its sales.”

Follow the debate on how far this poster appeared to have been plagiarised on this forum.