The audacity of Obamicon

Facebookers probably already know all about Obamicon, a website that allows one to take a photo -- any photo -- and convert it into a picture mimicking the iconic Obama "Hope" poster of the campaign.

Yes, that's the same one currently at the center of a copyright flap. The Associated Press claims it owns the image, and the artist Shepard Fairey claims his was fair use of the image, and the photographer who sold the picture to the AP claims he is the copyright holder.

While all this plays out in the courts, you can go to obamicon.com and upload a photo of yourself, or anything else (keep it clean) and convert it into a Faireyesque poster. That's what I did with the photograph above that the Lady Friend took in Alberta a year ago. Cool, eh?

You can create a poster without having to register, but you do have to register in order to download the poster. There's a bit of a delay before Obamicon responds to your registration request, so be patient.

There's also a Valentine-themed variation on the same site called Luvicon.

It's all mindless fun, and nobody gets ripped off.

(With thanks to Conan Kisor.)