Shepard Fairey & the Obama poster

The discussion continues about Shepard Fairey and his work - click
I look forward to seeing how this situation between the Associated Press (Mannie Garcia's photograph) and Shepard Fairey develops. The article was pretty interesting, especially the notes on the right side and specifically this one:

FAIR USE IN US LAW - KEY QUESTIONS
Transformation of the work: was the original changed giving it new meaning or value?

Shepard Fairey has faced this issue before. Following is one argument that I've forwarded to people in the past: Obey Plagiarist Shepard Fairey: A critique by artist Mark Vallen I've also heard that Mark Vallen got a lot of flak for posting his thoughts on Fairey's work, but I've never sort to find out what that was about or who did it.

Now for me personally, I remember Shepard Fairey & Dave Kinsey back in the day when they used to post stuff all over San Diego. In fact, my wife & I walked up on the two of them wheatpasting posters on an electrical box off of Laurel Avenue at laround 9pm in the evening in the late 90s. We actually took this opportunity to stop and chat to them. This was what they did, influenced by skateboarding, mass media and pop artists such as Rauschenberg, Warhol or Lichtenstein, all of whom plagiarized the hell out of everything. Then artists such as Keith Harring and Blek Le Rat had further impact with their "take it to the streets" attitude, changing the entire dynamic. There was a purpose and that was to take some mundane thing and give it an alternate meaning, a form of artistic expression shared with the public, whether they liked it or not. However, after looking at Mark Vallen's examples, you'll notice that most of the imagery presented already had significant meaning and was simply used to perpetuate the branding of the Obey clothing line for commercial means. Not on all counts, but when it ends up on a t-shirt instead of a gallery wall, I believe that line has been crossed. Plenty of brands do this though, the only difference here is that Obey represents the artist. I also find it hard to believe that Fairy wasn't making any money off of the Obama posters, besides recouping production costs.

BTW, Dave Kinsey has left a lot of that behind and if you are not familiar with him, check out his awesome work. He has evolved into a fantastic artist, far more interesting than Shepard Fairey but, unfortunately, doesn't have the recognition he deserves. Actually, Kinsey usually wheatpasted original characters that he designed and illustrated.... hmmm, it's hard thinking back because I wasn't really involved with that scene at all. I remember his old Treefort skateboard decks though, they were great.

Final note, another article about the irony of a Texas based artist who parodies Obey and how Shepard Fairey is possibly going to take legal action against him. I just think Shepard should take legal action against the Texas guy because his parodies are pretty crap.