Obama 'Hope' artist tells Halifax convention to obey this legal threat

A Halifax music festival will live up to its name and obey a famous U.S. artist's demand to change its name.

The Obey Convention started as a punk festival in Nova Scotia 12 years ago. It morphed into a multi-genre festival, and now a loveless letter from a lawyer on Valentine's Day is forcing it to get a new identity.

Andrew Patterson, director of the Obey Convention, said the Montreal-based law firm Bold Strategies contacted him on Feb. 14. They represent Shepard Fairey, a Los Angeles artist who operates the Obey Clothing brand. He also created the iconic Hope poster of Barack Obama, getting into a little copyright difficulty himself.

"We had a little laugh in the office. The brand similarity is something that we've been sort of conscious of. And it often comes up; people ask if we're associated with the clothing company," Patterson told CBC's Mainstreet on Tuesday. "Their brand is so ubiquitous that most people know that, rather than us."

But the lawyers weren't laughing. They said the festival was violating Fairey's Obey copyright and needed to get a new name. They said the Obey Convention could remain the name for this year's event, which starts Thursday and runs until Sunday. But it must change when the event ends. 

Patterson said his small non-profit group didn't feel hope, but rather fear and anger. "We have two part-time staff that work for less than minimum wage, year-round, and we get this letter from a huge law firm representing a millionaire. We're really not in a position to have any kind of a dialogue with them, unfortunately," he said.

Less punk, more love and understanding

Patterson thinks the name came from the first event in 2006, when a San Francisco band called Bastard Noise played. They use skull imagery and had a mantra of "obey the skull."

He said the name made sense at the time, drawing on punk's subversive vibe. "That punk identity has really become, 12 years later, about care and openness, which we feel now is very radical in 2019."

They probably won't rebrand as the Disobey Convention, he said, but hope to draw on a similarly evocative word.

In the meantime, a new note at the bottom of the convention's website reads: "Obey Convention is in no way endorsed by or affiliated with Shepard Fairey or Obey Giant."

Fairey is well-known for his Hope poster of Barack Obama. The artist sued the Associated Press in 2009, seeking a court declaration that he had not violated AP's copyrights with the poster. AP sued him back, saying he used one of their photographer's 2006 images of Obama without permission. The two sides settled on a deal that let both use the image.

Fairey was in 2012 sentenced to two years' probation for destroying and fabricating materials in that lawsuit.