"Hope" for Fair Use

Image obtained using Google Image Search. (Please don't sue me!)
Copyright issues are very prevalent in today's legal world. Unlike most teenagers who download music illegally, however, Shephard Fairey has the law of fair use to back up his possible infringement.

When looking for inspiration, Fairey did what most people would -- he typed in "Barack Obama" in a Google image search. When I searched for the same image, I did not find it among the first 500 results (out of almost 25 million). I imagine it would have been a lot easier before he became President, but the point remains the same -- the image was legally obtained on a computer, and no exact copy was ever produced or sold.

The law of fair use understands that, "there is no such thing as a completely original thought or idea and that all artistic and literary works are to some degree derivative of previous works" (Foust, 221).

The image of the President of the United States is probably the most widely-circulated image of a living individual in the world. Could Fairey not use any image he has ever seen? Even if he were to attend a rally, get his own photo or mental note, would it not be similar to another that already exists? If you were asked to draw a picture of Barack Obama right now (and it wouldn't end up a stick figure), would it not be similar to an image of him you have in your head? Guess where that image came from -- TV or photographs.

This is not Vanilla Ice stealing the bassline of "Under Pressure"; this is everyone using the same chords as in Pachelbel's Canon in D. The only way to avoid infringing on a copyright someone owned at some point would be to not ever produce anything new. Everything is derivative of something else, and if it's not an exact copy or used to try and steal credit, there should be no legal ramifications.