Copyright Infringement and Obama's Iconic Poster

(crossposted from CreativeFreedom.org.nz)

A story at TechDirt.com covers the history of that iconic Obama poster and how it was based on a photograph by Mannie Garcia who was on assignment to Washington by Associated Press (AP). This new work built upon an existing photo and there's a fine line between derivative works (which infringe copyright) and transformative works (which do not infringe copyright). Right now this Obama poster is in a state of legal limbo. If you view the TechDirt.com article you are of course downloading material that may or may not be legal. Anyone interested in copyright may recall that AP - who may own the Obama photo - have demanded payment for text quotations of 5 words or more. If you quote between 5-25 words from one of their news articles they demand payment of (US) $12.50 and the prices ascend from there. Associated Press have issued copyright takedown requests on many blogs, for example a 57 word quote where 47 of those words were quoting former-President Bush. Although the target of Section 92 was probably music and movies we've seen that copyright law is used by many other groups and soon untrained ISPs may be asked to judge copyright infringement. I wonder which side they will err on?