Judge Rules Against Shepard Fairey, Finances and Co-Conspirators Requested

Artist Shepard Fairey spent a portion of the start of this year on something of a mea culpa tour, this after his admitting to having been less than honest during an investigation into copyright infringement surrounding his now iconic Obama “Hope” poster. But while he’s said he’s sorry any number of times, the strong arm of the law doesn’t let up with a few months of apologies. A judge has ruled in favor of the Associated Press, who had requested information on who might have helped Fairey in destroying evidence after the news organization had sued the artist for directly copying one of their photographers photos of the now-President in the aforementioned poster. Once Fairey fessed up to having lied about his inspiration being merely a composite of a number of photos, criminal charges were then added. And now with this latest ruling, which also opens the doors to allow a search of “financial records related to Internet sales of the Obama poster” it looks like Fairey’s earlier predictions about the case will be correct, that he’s going to owe some big money and might be in some serious trouble.

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