Being that I am in my last year, there have been quite a couple projects where I chose to go a more photography-based route, and sometimes I would be looking for a shot I necessarily weren’t capable of capturing myself. I utilize Unsplash.com, it is a website that allows designers like ourselves to use free stock images for personal work. What I like the most about this site is when ever you download a photo from them, it displays a prompt that shows the photographers credited information, which I always implement into my work wherever I choose to implement the photo I download.
After reading the article about the Fairey copyright case, I believe that Fairey’s defense was clearly unethical. A designer doesn’t forget where they sourced their images, or just simply the fact of whether its their own or not. For Fairey to try and convince others it was a different photo then try to clear it up after that plan didn’t work is just a clear example of how Fairey chose to be unethical rather than do things the proper way and either purchase rights to the photograph or gain the permission to just credit the curator. Fairey isn’t any amateur artist either, as stated in the article as well, he was already known for using this style before, and for someone who utilizes portraits a lot, you would expect him to be familiar with using photographs which weren’t originally his, just a clear example of someone breaking the simple rules of design ethics.
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