This is a very interesting debate and will surely have an impact on us photographers in the states and around the world probably. It depends on your point of view. There is a photographers perspective and a painters perspective. Photographers will probably recognize this as a copy of the original. Copyright infringment. Its a very bad thing. No photographer in their right mind wants this to happen to them, especially on a scale this large. As a painter though, they usually need a model. It is kind of like the Mona Lisa. Mona Lisa would probably be a rich woman from that picture, but it wouldn't be from suing Da Vinci.
It is best said by David Bailey, “It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter, because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the ordinary.”
I'm not saying that we are better than painters, so if there are any of you out there, I apologize, but that quote is basically the reason the AP is upset about the guy using their picture as a 'model' but I do like that quote.