Shepard Fairey, the well-known appropriation artist who created the famous Obama “Hope” poster is in a well-publicized legal dispute over the image of that poster, with both the Associated Press and the photographer who took the original photo. It’s a fascinating fair use/copyright lawsuit, but it’s made a lot more complex (and not in a good way) by the fact that Fairey has been his own worst enemy, in multiple ways, throughout the lawsuit. The biggest — and most ridiculous — was the fact that he flat out lied and destroyed evidence. It’s hard to think of anything more stupid, frankly. He had an incredibly strong fair use claim just based on using the photo that everyone knew he used — and rather than focus on that, he clouded up the whole thing by pretending it was a different photo and destroying evidence. Those moves completely muck up the case and make it that much harder to judge it on the merits. But there’s another part of Fairey’s actions that has been equally troubling: he’