By Tiffany Maleshefski
Artist Shepard Fairey was clearly trying to do a good thing when he donated oodles of his highly coveted Pop Art political propaganda to the Barack Obama campaign.
You know the posters. The ones where the presidential candidate is looking out into America’s horizon brimming with dreamy optimism, with the words "Hope," "Change," "Progress," emblazoned underneath. The ones that sort of imply he’s a Messiah, but kind of have a sense of humor about it too (so back off Republicans!)
Fairey's intent has always been to distribute the iconic image and subsequent posters for free. He even has the image available on his website that folks can download for free. Thousands upon thousands of posters and postcards have been printed, and Fairey, hasn’t made a single dime. And that’s fine, because the “Obey Giant” artist never meant to make a profit.
Totally nice, right?
Ok, well, not so nice is the disappointingly large number of people have begun selling the artist’s free posters on eBay, hoping in most cases, to come away with a whopping $12 or $13.
At a recent Obama fundraiser, volunteers grimaced as they folded the super popular posters in half. They were hoping the crease through the poster’s middle would detract lame asses from reselling the would-or-would-not-be collector’s item on eBay. Good luck with that.