This is AWESOME!

I just happened across this site and quite obviously, the title sucked me in. Evan Roth, self-proclaimed Bad Ass Mother Fucker is an American artist based out of Hong Kong. His bio states that he has interests in technology, tools of empowerment, open source and popular culture (definately someone I would like to have a beer with). Coolest of all, he is the number one result from a “bad ass mother fucker” google search. Impressive as I would have surely thought it would have been Samuel Jackson or this

So onto the competition. Evan has staged a competition to see who will deliver a cease and desist quicker… an artist who uses pop culture to become abundantly wealthy, or the Associated Press- who claims to own the copyright on the photo (of our president). To fuel the fire, Evan has painted canvas versions of BOTH the inFamous “Hope” poster and the actual picture and is now selling them on his site. I cannot wait to see what the outcome of this is…

Below is a link to the blog as well as the text from the “contest.”

http://evan-roth.com/


Intellectual Property Asshole Competition: OBEY vs AP

Who is the bigger intellectual property asshole? Is it the artist who has amassed a small fortune based on "appropriation" yet still sends cease and desist letters to other artists for appropriating his work?

Or is it the largest (and only) US based nationally-oriented news service which fails to recognize "fair use" even when it literally stares them in the face?

I have created hand painted canvases of Shepard Fairy's Obama Hope poster, and Mannie Garcia's Associated Press photograph and put them for sale on my website here and here.

The first person to send me a cease and desist notice wins!

..... stay tuned for updates on the winner.

(For those unfamiliar with the Shepard Fairy / Associated Press intellectual property battle over the Obama Hope poster, here is a good place to start.)

(via evan-roth.com)

Thanks go to Evan for stirring it up!! At the very least, one could say he is “ballsy.”