Earlier this year, “artist” Shepard Fairey pleaded guilty to stealing somebody else’s work to create his once-considered-iconic “Hope” poster, and then lying about it in court with the help of fraudulent documents he created. In a lawsuit he filed.
As I said at the time:
Fairey’s ego was threatened, and he didn’t think the rules that apply to everybody else should apply to him. So he hit back hard and lied outrageously in the process.
What a perfect symbol of the Obama era.
Now the sentence has been passed, and Fairey got off light. BBC News:
The US artist who created the well-known “Hope” poster featuring President Barack Obama has been given two years probation and fined $25,000 (£15,000) in a criminal contempt case…
He had based his poster on an AP photo and later tried to hide the evidence.
Mr Fairey was spared jail but will do 300 hours of community service…
In a statement released after the court case on Friday, the artist said: “My wrong-headed actions, born out of a moment of fear and embarrassment, have not only been financially and psychologically costly to myself and my family, but also helped to obscure what I was fighting for in the first place – the ability of artists everywhere to be inspired and freely create art without reprisal.”
Fake but accurate! Yeah, well, he should’ve thought about that before he stole somebody’s work and then faked evidence in court to try to get out of it. I hope his community service consists of cleaning up all the stupid graffiti he’s left all over the place for the last 20 years.
Speaking of tarnished icons of the Obama era, Matthew Boyle reports:
Leah Kauffman, the singer-songwriter behind the 2008 “Obama girl” hit video, is back with a new pro-Obama song, “Still Got a Crush on Obama.”
Out just in time for President Barack Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech in Charlotte, the song’s music video is missing something, though: the infamous “Obama girl.”
Actress Amber Lee Ettinger, who lip-synced Kauffman’s 2008 song, had recently expressed disappointment with Obama’s presidency and said she might not vote for her former crush…
UPDATE: After this story was published, Ettinger told The Daily Caller in an email that she was asked to star in Leah Kauffman’s video but ultimately declined. “Since it was the same concept, I passed,” Ettinger wrote. “Can’t do it twice!”
The “Hope” poster was hopelessly fraudulent. “Obama Girl” is now just “Girl.” If only there were some pattern to all this…