I can assume the Boston Globe will not sue me over linking to this juxtaposed image.

They don’t usually get that silly, as the Associated Press has been when it threatened to sue Shepard Fairey, the street artist who turned the man on the left to the icon on the right.

The HOPE poster is so well known there are ways to render your own mug shot with the same color and brush strokes.

But last week, as the story got more twisted —Fairey got arrested on an unrelated charge in Boston, and then sued the AP — one wonders what kind of image management the venerable Associated Press is going for. Especially since this is not the first time it’s let its lawyers handle its PR.

Last year AP went after bloggers trying to put limits on how much of its content could be considered fair use. It later retreated. Forget the power of mashups for a second. Making a street artist the poster boy of copyright violation doesn’t  score any points for AP.