Tattoo Artists Are Asserting Their Copyright Claims

The ABA Journal reports:

One day you’re feeling bold, or perhaps temporarily insane, and you walk into a tattoo parlor to get inked up. Congratulations, you’re the proud owner of the art now displayed on your skin and you can flaunt it however you wish. Not so fast.

A growing body of case law derived from a series of high-profile lawsuits suggests that ultimately it’s the tattoo artist—not the person who bears the tattoo—who owns the rights to that tattoo.

Copyright law protects original works of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of expression, including anything from paint on a canvas to sculpted clay to a piece of music.

And now it’s increasingly clear that the law also applies to ink on skin.

“Of course tattoos can be copyrighted,” said Judge Catherine D. Perry in a 2011 federal court hearing involving boxer Mike Tyson’s well-known tribal tattoo. “I don’t think there is any reasonable dispute about that.”

Tyson’s tattoo is widely credited with sparking the issue after his tattoo artist, S. Victor Whitmill, sued Warner Bros. for copyright infringement over the use of Tyson’s tattoo in the movie The Hangover: Part II. In the film, a character becomes intoxicated and wakes up with a replica of Tyson’s tattoo on his face.

Warner Bros. had argued in part that the depiction of the tattoo was simply parody and protected as fair use. But the judge in the Tyson tattoo case disagreed. “This use of the tattoo did not comment on the artist’s work or have any critical bearing on the original composition,” she said. “There was no change to this tattoo or any parody of the tattoo itself.”

The case ultimately settled out of court. . . .