Mr. Brainwash, aka Thierry Guetta, is getting sued for basing some of his “artwork” on Glen E. Friedman’s iconic photograph of Run DMC (as seen on the right side of the above photograph).
Sean Bonner has an article on Boing Boing with some details of the case his thoughts. While I think he makes some good points as to why this is different from Shepard Fairey’s lawsuit with the AP over his Obama HOPE poster, I disagree with his conclusion that Mr. Brainwash’s work isn’t covered by fair use while Shepard Fairey’s should be. As much as I dislike what Thierry does, as much as I would like to bash him and as much as I think the ethical thing in this case would have been to credit and license the image from Glen E. Friedman, I’m not sure that it’s a wise thing to say that he should be legally obligated to do so. I’ll probably explain my thoughts on this in more depth in another post by the end of the week.
Photo by enderzero