The guy who made the famous Obama poster? I went to a talk tonight at the New York Public Library between him (Shepard Fairey), Lawrence Lessig, and Steven Johnson about how remixing plays into our, on the one hand, corporate and litigious, and on the other, mashing up and free-wheeling, society. Here are my favorite quotes/ideas from the night:

Steven Johnson: “Ideas get better when they circulate.”
Larwrence Lessig: Why not charge people when they quote you?
Shepard Fairey:
“‘Images that are in public space that aren’t advertising reawaken a sense of wonder.”
“I’ve never had an original thought in my life…and there’s tons of people on the internet happy to tell me just that.”
“Every spoof gives more power to the original.”
“I said, ok, I’ll pay the licensing fee it. And [the AP] said, no, we want to claim damages. I said damages? Because of my poster the Mannie Garcia picture is now worth more than it ever would have been.”

RELATED: AP wants credit for Fairey’s Obama image [Bostonist]

UPDATE: Here is the audio from Lessig’s presentation:

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