

How a plagiarized portrait of Obama ended up hanging in the white house - Sujan
http://hedcuts.blogspot.com/2009/10/jose-maria-cano-is-con-artist-he-uses.html

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RK
I wonder who took the photo her stipple portrait is a copy of?

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timr
How do you know that it's a copy of a photo?

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theklub
That's not something you draw from memory. She should feel honored.

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joshwa
Regardless of whatever motive or manipulation the artist has done to the WSJ
image, it remains a derivative work and is still covered by copyright:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derivative_work>

"A typical example of a derivative work received for registration in the
Copyright Office is one that is primarily a new work but incorporates some
previously published material. This previously published material makes the
work a derivative work under the copyright law. To be copyrightable, a
derivative work must be different enough from the original to be regarded as a
"new work" or must contain a substantial amount of new material. Making minor
changes or additions of little substance to a preexisting work will not
qualify the work as a new version for copyright purposes. The new material
must be original and copyrightable in itself. Titles, short phrases, and
format, for example, are not copyrightable."

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pbhjpbhj
I think it's an abomination that the original creator of the image is not
credited. That said the printer, Cano, probably just bought reproduction
rights from the journal? Maybe not, perhaps the journal won't sue as they
don't want to restrict their ability to display photos of others work (even
though they are reporting news, ie it is fair use, and he is not).

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mseebach
I don't think she's fishing for credit. She's offended that someone gets to
make money, even passing himself of as an artist, for simply cranking the
zoom-level on a photocopier way up. In all fairness, President Obama should be
a bit offended to. This "piece of art" is nothing, if not blatantly tapping
into the off-the-charts hype around his person. He'd be wise to try to calm
the hype rather than encouraging it.

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pbhjpbhj
_I don't think she's fishing for credit._ Nor do I. My point is not that she
wants credit but that Cano should acknowledge that his input into the piece he
produced was limited to a small alteration. In the quote in the original
artists post:

 _"José-María Cano generously offered this painting to Vaclav Havel as a gift
for Barack Obama", said Leos Valka, director of DOX, Centre for Contemporary
art in Holesovice, Prague._

The Director should have said "Cano offered this painting which he duplicated
from an original work by Ms Novak in the WSJ ...". It's not that she demands
the credit, it should be given.

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narendranag
Since when has art been reduced to the image on canvas? What matters is the
artist's motive, the reason behind the work. That's what separates art from
commercial design -- after all, in both places you see original images, but
only the first qualifies as art.

I don't think this qualifies as plagiarism. After all, didn't Andy Warhol take
a soup can and repeat it over and over again. I don't remember the soup
company crying plagiarism. Or the designer who first came up with the soup can
cover.

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10ren
I've wondered about that soup-can artist... Campbells wouldn't have complained
about it, because it was free publicity (and much clearer than Hormel's _spam_
dilemma). The original designer would no longer have copyright in the design
(Campbells, his/her hirer, would own it), and would have no say.

But how would he/she feel? Privileged to have their obviously commercial work
elevated to Art? Shamed, because of same? Or simple bemusement, like so many
others?

Regardless, I don't think a portrait is in the same category as a can of soup.

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phsr
Electronic spam is gets its name from the Monty Python sketch (Python is named
for Monty Python also)

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graywh
Actually, it's the use of of the word "Spam" in the sketch of the same name.

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pmorici
Is this really as clear cut as the artist is trying to say? The page she
references says "The portrait is created using the encaustic technique of
painting with hot wax." as far as I know there isn't a copy machine on earth
that will make an enlargement in hot wax. Point being the "offending" artist
must have done some amount of actual artistic work.

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timr
The encaustic paintings shown are basically just the wax equivalent of tracing
the blown-up originals -- the "artist" glues the blown-up paper version to a
canvas, then layers black wax over the black parts, and white wax over the
white parts. You can even see the halo of the original paper version behind
the white wax.

It isn't totally mechanical, but there isn't much creative work involved
either.

