Butch Johnson, owner of Champion Tattoo Company, works on a former US Marine at his art studio in Washington, DC, on April 18, 2016. (AFP Photo/Brendan Smialowski).
More than 20 percent of all Americans have at least one tattoo, and for millennials that number jumps to almost 40 percent. What could be more intimately a part of you than a work of body art permanently inked into your skin? You probably assume that the tattoo on your body belongs to you. But, in actuality, somebody else might own your tattoo. Recent lawsuits and events have shown that tattoo artists and companies can have intellectual property rights in tattoos worn by others, including both copyright and trademark rights.
Tattoo-related lawsuits are not uncommon. Just this year, a group of tattoo artists for several high-profile athletes, including Lebron James and Kobe Bryant, filed a copyright lawsuit against the creators of the popular NBA 2K video game franchise because tattoos they created appear in NBA 2K16. The case is still pending in a New York federal court.
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And the issue isn’t limited to celebrities and athletes. For example, Sam Penix, a coffee shop owner living in New York, was threatened with a trademark infringement lawsuit in 2013 based on the “I [coffee cup] NY” tattoo he has across his fist. Penix’s shop logo featured his tattooed fist grabbing a coffee portafilter between the words “Everyman Espresso.” The New York State Department of Economic Development, which owns the “I ♥ NY” trademark, sent Penix a cease-and-desist letter because it believed the logo infringed its trademark. To avoid being sued, Penix agreed to several terms, including some restrictions on how his fist could (and could not) be photographed.
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Until courts and legislators create innovative legal solutions, both tattoo artists and people with tattoos should consider copyright agreements that specifically outline who owns a resulting tattoo. People with trademark tattoos should be aware that displaying their tattoos visibly in commerce could lead to liability. Otherwise, tattooed skin may end up with several owners with competing interests – and even if you live within that skin, you may not own the art that adorns it.
I’ve been thinking about getting more ink. If I do, it will be the same as my existing ink – my own original art work.
The full article is at Raw Story.
If I were to have a tattoo*, I wouldn’t want to have any trademark on my skin without being paid millions and possibly not even then.
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* = The best places (back, arms, shoulders, chest, abdomen, legs) for tattoos are quite hairy and I’m prone to allergies.
Ice Swimmer:
I’d have to go with ‘not even then’. I’m not advertising space. I’m pretty much hair free, excepting head hair, I have very little elsewhere. My problem is bones. I’m not well padded, and tats on bone effing hurt. I can handle it, but the one I’d like done is rather large, and a fair amount of it would be over my spine. I don’t know how well I’d handle that one.
It hadn’t even occurred to me that my (only) tattoo is probably copyrighted by Doubleday. It’s part of the cover art for a children’s book written by my grandfather, of which I’m pretty sure I’m the protagonist. Looks like it will be under copyright until I’m 103. Course it’s been out of print so long I’m willing to bet whatever legal action they’re allowed to take that nobody will ever notice or care, even if a photo of my calves appears on the jumbotron in Times Square.
Johnny Vector:
Now that’s a tat with a great story! You know I have to ask, name of the book?
Lions Backward. It tells the story of a boy who likes to rhyme, who is walking around New York City when he runs out of rhymes for “soil”, and comes up with “snoil”. At which point three backwards lions appear, and hijinx and adventure ensue until he figures out that “snoil” is “lions” backward. Apparently I was a regular little Lin-Manuel Miranda back in the day. It’s not a great children’s book, but it’s not bad.
Here’s a partial photo of the cover that I copped from a used copy available on Amazon: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41DDxbpQydL._SL1600_.jpg
I have one lion on each calf, one looking away and one with that sultry over-the-shoulder pose. It’s good tattoo art, because (A) it’s a simple line drawing, and (B) it meets the tattoo rule of “Will it still mean something to you when you’re 80?”
That sounds like a wonderful story! I can see that those lions would make for good tattoos, too.
Johnny Vector
That’s such a great story!
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I’m kinda torn on these things. I think part of the problem is getting clear in what you’re actually paying the artist for? Are you just using their design as a one time licence? Or do you own the design?