[Leica] Re: Fair use -- Of Gee Bee's Photos?

[glehrer at san.rr.com (Jerry Lehrer)]

Larry,

I have never seen any of Gee Bee's pictures of the Lake Country 
(Cumbria).  I  thought that most of his pictures were of Nothhamptonshire
which does not have more than a pond or two. a few rivers and a canal.


Lawrence Zeitlin wrote:
> This morning the CBS TV show "Sunday Morning" featured the work of 
> Shepard Fairy, the street artist whose rip off of the AP photo of 
> Barack Obama sparked a lawsuit. While not exactly condoning Fairy's 
> actions, the story tried to justify the point that artists were free 
> to violate the copyright laws if it was done in the name of art. 
> Examples used included Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup can and Marcel 
> Duchamp's Mona Lisa with a moustache. Apart from the inconvenient fact 
> that the Mona Lisa was never copyrighted, does the LUG consider this 
> "Fair Use." Could I take one of Gee Bee's pictures of the Lake 
> Country, stick a sunflower on it, and call it 'Kansas as it should be."
>
> How much alteration of an image does the LUG think is necessary before 
> a work can be considered original and not derivative? Is it the actual 
> image that is important or the artist's or photographer's intent? As a 
> point of reference, my wife, who is a well respected artist, refuses 
> to paint from a photograph which she, herself, has not taken. She 
> won't even paint from any of mine. (I hope this is a tribute to her 
> sterling character and not a critique of my photographs.)
>
> Larry Z
>