"On the Rights of Molotov Man: Appropriation and the art of context" by Joy Garnett and Susan Meiselas 2007

Susan Meiselas, Molotov Man, 1979

This article is told in two parts, one from the point of view of Joy Garnett, the other from Susan Meiselas.  Garnett is a painter and was working on a series of riot-inspired paintings.  She bases most of her paintings on photographs she finds online and, upon finishing the riot series and having it exhibited, was contacted by Meiselas's lawyer who explained that Garnett had used one of Meiselas's photographs without her permission in Garnett's painting "Molotov."  

Joy Garnett, Molotov, 2003

Garnett eventually felt uncomfortable enough that she took the painting down from her website, but she had talked to other artists online about the conflict and they began to reproduce the same image, in different forms, out of solidarity.  Garnett raises some interesting questions concerning copyright and creative plagiarism: "Does the author of a documentary photograph--a document whose mission is, in part, to provide the public with a record of events of social and historical value--have the right to control the content of this document for all time?"  A blogger also asked, "Who owns the rights to this man's struggle?"  

Meiselas responds to Garnett's version of the story in that she wants to give the context behind her photograph.  She is at odds with Garnett's painting de-contextualizing her work and thinks it is important to understand why this man did what he did, who he was, and what was going on in Nicaragua at the time the picture was taken.  Meiselas ultimately believes "it would be a betrayal of him [Molotov Man] if I did not at least protest the diminishment of his act of defiance".