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If lawyers representing Shepard Fairey in his copyright fight with The Associated Press do intend to drop him as a client, The AP isn’t going to make it easy for them.

The news organization included that nugget in court papers filed Tuesday on the heels of Fairey’s admission that he inaccurately identified which AP photo served as the genesis of his iconic Obama Hope poster—and then destroyed and fabricated evidence to cover up the truth.

The AP notes in the newly submitted documents—which amend those it filed in the early stages of its dispute with Fairey—that the artist's lawyers have said they plan to pull out of the case following their client’s mea culpa. Not so fast, the wire service says.

“The AP intends to oppose any such request because, among other things, it would significantly prejudice The AP as it would take new counsel a substantial amount of time to come up to speed,” state the amended filings, prepared by the AP’s outside counsel at Kirkland & Ellis. “It would also inevitably lead to additional expenses for The AP, a not-for-profit organization that has already been forced to incur substantial cost engaging in a discovery process that was made significantly more expensive by Fairey’s lies and spoliation and fabrication of evidence.”

Calls to lead Fairey lawyers Anthony Falzone, executive director of Stanford University’s Fair Use Project, and Joseph Gratz, of Durie Tangri Lemley Roberts & Kent, were not immediately returned. 
 
Fairey filed a preemptive suit against The AP in February, claiming that fair-use rules cover his ubiquitous Obama Hope image. The AP countersued in March, alleging that Fairey’s work infringed its copyright. In an added wrinkle, AP freelance photographer Mannie Garcia, who shot the picture in question, subsequently intervened in the case, claiming that he, not The AP, owns the copyright on the image.

In a statement issued Friday, Fairey said his initial failure to acknowledge which photo he’d actually used was simply a mistake. Prior to that, he had insisted that he relied on a different Garcia photo—one showing Obama seated next to actor George Clooney—not the tightly focused Obama head shot The AP cited as his source. “While I initially believed that the photo I referenced was a different one, I discovered early on in the case that I was wrong,” he said in the statement.

In the papers filed Tuesday, The AP cast that as a lie: “In essence, it appears that after being caught red-handed and admitting to fabricating and destroying evidence…Fairey is now concocting another story to spin those bad acts in the best light possible.” Fairey’s version of events, The AP claims, is “simply not credible.”

Fairey spokesman Jay Strell issued the following statement in response to the AP's filing: "Shepard continues to stand by his statement from last Friday. He has apologized and taken responsibility for his actions. The more important question is why the AP continues to spend enormous financial resources attacking Shepard and diverting the debate from the central question in this case, which is whether he transformed the Mannie Garcia image into a work of art, which he has."

Among the other noteworthy items contained in the latest AP filing:

•The AP refuted Fairey’s steadfast claim that he has not profited from the Obama Hope image, and added Obey Clothing, a brand launched by the artist, as a defendant in its countersuit.

•The news organization accused Fairey of using the dispute as a way of expanding his commercial endeavors via inappropriate means: “Fairey thought that a favorable outcome in this case would let him continue his practice of using other people’s copyrighted works for profit without giving them credit, compensation, or attribution.”

•Fairey, the AP claims, has licensed photographs from The AP in the past—specifically a well-known AP photograph of a Palestinian woman—for use on T-shirts and art prints, “completely undermining his argument in this case that no such license was needed.”

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