The article “On the Rights of Molotov Man” begins with an accident about copyright issues between two artists. Joy wasn’t expected to receive the copyright infringement charge for a photo he found online. After the related artwork stimulated the Joywar campaign, which leads to a social debate on copyright policy, the artists himself came to question the duration and eligibility that an author of a documentary photograph could own on the copyright of his or her artwork, especially when the documentary photograph involves portraits of a man.
From Joy’s perspective, he may not understand why Susan was so insisted in the copyright of the photo, even after he has clearly stated the origin on the announcement card. However, after Susan demonstrated about the background and context of the original photo. We can understand her emphasis on reclaiming of the context. Her hope is to contextualize the image within a specific context and her charge was not for her ownership of the artwork but for respecting the individuality of the character in the photograph. The intention of the two artists vary from each other significantly. One is to convey a personal emotion or intention, the other is to record the documentary truth and history. The different purpose of this artwork cause the debate but also lead to an important problem in the context of the art. Sometimes, it is dangerous and disrespectful to the original author or character if we look at an artwork without considering its context. The decontextualized derivatives may also lose or distort the original ideology of an artist and it is also a betrayal of the character in the photograph.