Street artist Shepard Fairey and the Associated Press have settled their legal dispute over the former’s iconic ‘Hope’ campaign poster of Barack Obama. The case had been running for about two years now.

“In settling the lawsuit, the AP and Mr Fairey have agreed that neither side surrenders its view of the law,” said the AP in a statement, adding that Fairey has agreed not to use another AP photo in his work without prior permission.

Both parties will work together with future developments of the Hope image, and will share rights to reproduce and merchandise the image. Financial terms were not disclosed by the AP.

Additionally, Fairey and the AP will collaborate on a series of images the former will create based on the latter’s photographs.

“The AP is pleased to have reached resolution of its lawsuit with Mr Fairey,” the AP president and CEO said in a statement. “The AP will continue to vigilantly protect its copyrighted photographs against wholesale copying and commercialization where there is no legitimate basis for asserting fair use.”

Fairey sued the news agency in 2009 when it accused him of “copyright infrigement for using one of its photographs as the basis for the poster”, reports The New York Times.

The original photo was taken in April 2006 by freelancer Mannie Garcia for the AP.

Image via The Washington Post

[via AP]


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