Wouldn’t the artist/image in question have to be copyrighted in the first place to be taken down for this reason?
As far as I know the creator did not intend this image to be used for commercial purposes since it was put up on street signs, utility poles etc. as a political protest. It seems to me it was put in the public domain expressly to be used freely.
In an actual trial maybe that argument would work - but Flikr has no desire to fight it. Typically these companies just yank any potentially troublesome image and hope nothing comes of it.
Yep, exactly. The copyright issue doesn’t make sense to me, especially being countless will make different versions which aren’t covered.