The Obama Hope Poster
The artist who created US President Barack Obama’s iconic campaign poster faces six months in jail for admitting to lying in court papers about the source of his inspiration.
Graphic designer Sheppard Fairey, 42, was sued by the Associated Press for copyright infringement back in February 2009, reports the UK Daily Mail. The news publisher claimed the artist used one of its photographs to create the poster that helped launch Obama into the presidency.
Fairey claimed during the trial that he based his work on a cropped photo of then-Senator Obama sitting at a table with actor George Clooney. It was only a few days later that he sawa blog comparing the Clooney picture with another AP photograph, that he realized the image he had used was a different AP picture of Obama taken at the same event.
Fairey said that before meeting with his lawyers six weeks later, he deleted the files showing he had used the Obama photo that did not include Clooney and printed documents to make it appear that he had used the picture with Clooney in it.
Shepperd Fairey
“I showed my lawyers the fake documents as I described my artistic process and told them that I had used the Clooney photo as a reference for the Obama ‘HOPE’ poster,” Fairey said.
“Violating the court’s trust was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Fairey said in Manhattan federal court.
The New York Post reports Federal prosecutor Daniel Levy will seek “some term of imprisonment” for Fairey’s pleading guilty to the misdemeanor charge of contempt.
AP President and CEO Tom Curley said the wire service “hopes that some good may come of this, by alerting judges and parties to the possibility that fake evidence may exist.”
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