The readings intrigued me and what I took from them is that I need to be more careful about the work I produce. For about 2 years I have been taking freelance commissions and one service I’m constantly asked to complete by my clients requires photo manipulation. While I use stock photography while given free reign on a design, I have often used photography provided by my clients which they did not own the rights to. I would like to keep myself to a certain level of integrity when working for people to avoid issues in the future. As Amanda Ray states, there are no industry guidelines for designers, but I believe guidelines should be given. Designers should be educated on what they are doing and what they are providing to their clients to avoid hurting themself or their clients. Workers without any level of integrity, in my opinion, just lead to a more problematic business model. This is why the copyright article really spoke to me. The article made me understand that I need to become more familiar with copyright and free use laws in order to deliver the best work. While I was familiar with most of the laws within the article, I believe it’s possible I may have infringed upon rights before by illustrating photos.
My dilemma is actually quite similar to the Fairey Hope poster. In the case of Fairey’s hope poster, I think his poster should fall under fair use laws. I could understand getting in trouble for using someone’s likeness, for example if Obama were to directly create a legal issue with Fairey, however I think simply using a pose from a picture should be protected. Fairey clearly did not trace the photo and changed essentially every aspect of the photo. The hope poster contains different coloring, typography and graphic elements. I think the settlement is ultimately fair as both parties have been credited and make profit, but I’d argue that if a designer manipulates a photo skillfully enough, they should receive the lion share of the split profits.
