Fairey dust up

Irony: The Sunday Styles (print) section dispayed a cover of a photo of Gloria Steinem by Shepherd Fairey. In the online version they led the story with a photo credited to Don Hogan Charles/The New York Times and ran the illustration below it. Its a great photo and I like the illustration too.
It's nice that the photo correction was made online (I'm assuming, perhaps, that the edit was made after the print edition ran).
My reason for illuminating this is that According to the Times Shep was charged with stealing from the Obama HOPE image photographed by Manny Garcia. It was well played out in the media and the AP law firm that sued Fairey for copyright infringment (Kirkland Ellis) had called me to to testify against Fairey (I declined but it was interesting to talk with their lawyers for an hour or so about the nature of original works and how illustrators and publications source works from unattributed photos all the time).
 
Apparently his recent conviction has not hurt his reputation at the Times. What are your thoughts on Fairey, the AP and photo-stration? Some ADs call  illustrators that trace or xerox photos "treaters".