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Shepard Fairey’s image below has achieved legendary status as one of the most recognizable icons of the now historic Barack Obama presidential campaign. The image above it may become as legendary for being the foundation of a successful copyright infringement suit against one of the most recognizable icons of the Barack Obama presidential campaign. The case for infringement is very strong, but that’s not why I’m pissed off at Shepard Fairey.

Analysis by stevesimula on Flickr of the image by AP photographer Mannie Garcia compared with Shepard Fairey's Obama HOPE poster.

Last year, at the Microsoft Pro Photography Summit, I advocated a policy of letting your online images get swiped for non-advertising use as long as they were accompanied by click-through attribution to your web site. I feel very strongly that there is more value using your images to get exposure on the web versus the money you would earn in selling your photos to blogs and other online entities. This assertion has been heard with differing degrees of shock and appreciation. I have been sure to put my photos where my mouth is with the following paragraph on the “about” page of my website:

“Copyright rules governing the material on this site: As long as you don’t use any of the copyrighted material on this site for advertising purposes or in association with anything illegal, AND you give me attribution in the form of a link back to this site, then grab the goods.”

Before the internet became a quotidian communication medium, Shepard Fairey was a significant figure in the underground art world. However, his huge popularity in the mainstream, especially the popularity of his Obama image, is a direct result of the internet. Acknowledging Mannie Garcia, the photographer who provided the image for his art piece, would have been an extraordinary example of online creative kinship.  The type of creative kinship that fuels the remixing of existing creative works found online, as well as some of the best applications that have ever existed via the open source software movement. (If you’re reading this in a Firefox browser you’re reaping the rewards of this ideal.) Mr. Fairey could have brought Mr. Garcia some significant attention without detracting from his own.

In failing to do so, Mr. Fairey let us all down. He violated the unspoken, inviolate rule of the internet community. Acknowledgment has been expected online community behavior since the pre-browser days of the internet. It is the one continuous thread that makes the evolving internet a successful democracy.

I’m sure Mr. Fairey was totally unaware that his piece was destined for such popularity. I’m also aware that Mr. Fairey is notorious for using his work to challenge established social norms. But the Obama campaign was different. It was one based on change. It offered real hope that the ideals of the rest of us, the public, would finally take precedence over the few with access to power. Mr. Fairey’s failure to recognize the importance of the celebrity of his Obama piece as an endorsement of the true democracy of the internet is a disservice to us all. Especially when one considers how easy it would have been to give credit where credit was due.

Fine art and portrait photographer Michael Jang tells some great “breaking into the biz” stories in this video interview from our Photographers in Focus series. While still in art school, he used a letter from his teacher and some creative subterfuge to crash big Beverly Hills parties — and make the images that launched his career. We wanted to make sure you got a chance to see it if you haven’t already.

Michael is in San Francisco like us, so we thought we’d check in and see what he’s been up to lately. He’s excited about his recent conversation with aspiring photographers at the University High School here in town. Check out the San Francisco Chronicle story about his visit to the school as well as a collection of his very early family photos, which have just been acquired by the SFMoMA this year. Michael also gave us some bonus video footage of him speaking at a Photoshelter panel discussion.

“Don’t lose sight of why you want to be a photographer and your love for photography,” he advises. “If you can make good pictures, people will find you.” His point — that the real issue is not how to make money, but how to make great pictures — might not be the most popular, since it’s not the easy solution, but judging from the applause after Michael’s comments, it needs to be said more often.

• After Tom Gralish helped pinpoint the photo that was used as the starting point for the famous Obama HOPE poster (by Mannie Garcia for the AP), the AP on Wednesday “reached out” to the lawyer of Shepard Fairey, who created the poster and is now much richer and famouser. Carolyn E. Wright, the author of the Photographer’s Legal Guide and the writer of the Photo Attorney blog, wrote a long post Thursday analyzing the AP’s case and concluding that she, at least, would take the case. via: Online Photographer. John Harrington has several good posts on it too: here, here, and here.

• Everyone is atwitter over Paolo Pellegrin’s photo essay for the New York Times, Great Performers. And they should be. It’s stunning and unveils just how staged most celebrity photos are with its dedication to a photojournalistic truth. It also reminded me instantly of Paolo’s Iraqi Diaspora project, which I saw at Visa pour l’Image this year, and which had everyone in Perpignan atwitter to see a photographer so skilled in black and white also blow us away with color.

• Greg Gibson has a great post on his blog explaining in detail how McLatchy-Tribune News Services photographer Chuck Kennedy convinced the White House to let him set up a remote camera at the foot of the podium during Obama’s swearing in. Probably the most impressive part is seeing just how many front pages ran the image…a great lesson for photographers about always trying to do something new, even when it seems like it’s all been done before.