Political copying

At the AALS recruitment conference this weekend, the hotel gift shop had some of these: Which of course evoked Shepard Fairey's poster, aka "Shepard Fairey's iconic poster": There's an interesting question in visual fair uses of this sort. The obvious critical point is directed at Obama, not Fairey. However, because Fairey's poster is not a photo, it's easily arguable that the McCain version also operates as a critique of the heroic style in which Fairey has portrayed Obama. Occasionally courts recognize similar points with photography--e.g., the Naked Gun case, in which the court found that a mockery of Annie Liebovitz's iconic photo of Demi Moore was fair use.

Denouement: copying doesn't always do what you want it to do: