On the Rights of the Molotov Man

Wow..it's an interesting article. I never heard of the photograph of Molotov Man in 1979 or the agitprops of him in 2004...When I started reading this, I began to think that copying parts of the photograph into a painting wasn't that a big deal to me. But I completely understood why and how Susan, the source of the photograph, felt about the copyright. She said that she felt like Pablo Arauz (the Molotov Man identity)'s context was ripped away from its original image into something abstract form or something.

In fact, it really never occured to me that copying the photo into something abstract or graphic design is a big deal. I would definitely do the same thing as Joy. I mean I can find an image that was taken by someone else and I can mess around with it. I understand the copyright laws of film but not photographs or art because as a film studies major, I have to ask permission for the sound or music or footage or any films that were made before and so I do that before I use them. But on the other hand, photographs or art may or may not be a big deal for copyrights but I thought it's okay to use them for graphic design or whatever. What about magazines? Why should we buy the magazines where there are pictures of people or whatever? If copyrighting photos are such a big deal, then they shouldn't post the pictures, right? So I'm saying that I think it's okay to copy the photos and whatevever you want to do with them. Same as film in a certain style. I have seen some documentaries and some of them had footage or clips on it. I wasn't sure if any of the directors ever had permissions to use the footage or clips. Maybe. Maybe not. I bet experimental filmmakers used anything they wanted without approval.

I'm amazed that the Nicaraguna natives were obsessed with the image of the Molotov Man and used it with different ways for years and years. They also worshipped with other people. I have enjoyed looking at the same image with different designs. I liked one or two of them, such as one with Pepsi logo with TV sets on the bottom..and other one of millions of tiny squares along with pictures to create the image of the Molotov Man. Both are cool. I'm interested in graphic design so the article inspired me a lot. Cool!!! :)