In the past I have used other creative work. In my free time I like to make cartoons and short animations and I usually go out of my way to include music in them. Most of the time the music is copyright free and the only thing I have to do is credit the original composer in a video caption or description. Sometimes if I want to use copyrighted music I go out of my way and reach out to the artist via email and ask for permission to use their music.
Although I love Shepard Fairey’s design and I think that it was truly impactful, he was not right. Fairey argues that artists should have the freedom to freely create art when they are inspired without repercussions. That way of thinking is just blatantly wrong. It is one thing to say if you only referenced the photo of Obama, it is another to trace directly off copyrighted images. If people were given that freedom, art theft would be more apparent. It also doesn’t help that it is a lot easier to steal art on the internet without crediting people. That’s why NFT artwork is so hated by the art community because there are no rules and regulations to stop art theft from happening. Literally, thousands of artists’ artwork were sold off to the blockchain and they were unable to do anything about it.
