No, because they're not selling the image.
lol and some people think IP laws arn't broken. What a ridiculous lawsuit. What about the people who get tattoos and they're visible to public, is that copyright infringement too? I mean, they are technically broadcasting the copyrighted material to everyone to see.
I wonder if open source tattoos will become a thing now. lol
ignorance of the law is not a defense.
You're being all kinds of ignorant right now but it isn't helping your case.
Since then there have been several copyright disputes involving tattoos. In 2012, a tattoo artist who inked mixed-martial-arts fighter Carlos Condit sued video game maker THQ Inc. for depicting Condit’s lion tattoo on a game character resembling the fighter. Also, the National Football League Players Association has warned players to seek copyright waivers from their tattoo artists to guard against lawsuits in the event images of the tattoos are used—intentionally or not—in advertisements, video games and other media.
Lawyers foresee copyright waivers becoming a fixture in tattoo parlors. “I don’t doubt that in many larger tattoo parlors it will become standard that some type of document is presented to those who are going to have tattoos put on them stating that those tattoos have been created by the tattoo artist or the parlor,” says entertainment lawyer Jerry Glover of Leavens, Strand, Glover & Adler in Chicago.
Some have worried that all this litigation could result in people having to sign over the rights to their body anytime they are tattooed. But so far the case law has suggested that simply getting a tattoo doesn’t mean the body and its art has to be shrouded whenever a camera is near. Instead, it’s the tattoo design that cannot be misappropriated.
“When you tattoo somebody, what you are giving them is an implied license to live their life,” says professor Yvette Joy Liebesman of Saint Louis University School of Law. “They don’t have to be concerned about the way the tattoo is displayed on themselves. The issue is copying that tattoo on somebody else.”
Four years ago, Christopher Escobedo, a tattoo artist in Phoenix, inked a large tattoo of a lion into the ribcage of a mixed martial arts fighter named Carlos Condit. A year later, the fighter and his lion tattoo appeared in the video game UFC Undisputed. Now the tattoo artist is suing the game’s maker, THQ, for copyright infringement. “It’s an exact replica of my art,” says Escobedo. “That’s like a $5,000 tattoo that I got no recognition for.”
Tattoos are a largely uncharted territory in copyright law. “There’s not really been any cases where this has been litigated by courts,” says Timothy Bradley, an intellectual-property lawyer in North Carolina who has written about tattoos and copyright (PDF). Artists have filed suits such as Escobedo’s before, but they have settled before a court could weigh in on tricky questions about what a person is entitled to do with an image stained into his or her skin.
In 2005, Portland artist Matthew Reed sued Nike (NKE), its ad agency Weiden & Kennedy, and NBA player Rasheed Wallace over an advertisement that showed Reed’s rendering of an Egyptian-style family slowly appearing on Wallace’s arm. The two sides settled before the case went to trial. S. Victor Whitmill, the Missouri artist responsible for Mike Tyson’s face tattoo, sued Warner Brothers (TWX) in 2011 over the use of his design in The Hangover Part II. In the movie, a character played by Ed Helms wakes up with a tattoo resembling Tyson’s. Whitmill also settled; Escobedo says he hopes to do the same. (His complaint is now a part of THQ’s bankruptcy proceedings.)
How could the player not be selling their image when they are literally selling the rights to use their image?
We all know you pirate the fuck out of everything and do so thinking that its because ip laws arent what you demand but this case has nothing to do with ip laws being broken. This guy could bring a lawsuit whenever he wanted.
This does not even have anything to do with pirating. It's basically displaying an art work that was already paid for. If the tatoo artist does not want his art displayed in public, then perhaps he should not tatoo people with it.
Once it's printed on your body, it is part of your body. I don't think legally you could sell rights specifically to that image, but if its part of your body and you have a contract with joe blow game maker that you give them rights to reproduce your likeness, then I see no problems with it.
Next we'll have law suits of clothing company's claiming the same thing.
So if I create a movie starring Shrek it's trademark infringement, unless I also get a tattoo of Shrek on my body?
So I guess its the exact recreation of the tattoo as digital asset that is the issue. Carlos condit's tattoo artist isnt suing the ufc everytime he fights because they showed the tattoo. Just as artists aren't suing filmmakers for having the art in their films but would probably sue if a videogame maker recreated the art.
Yet another massive Rakehellion fail.
Are you saying you can get a 24fps image tattooed on your ass?
This is not about displaying his art in public, this is about another entity using said art and profiting from it.
What are they suppose to do sensor everything? Nobody is losing money here, this copyright stuff is just so ridiculously absurd.
So it's ok in the real world but not ok in the virtual world?
The game is simply trying to represent a real life situation, that real life situation happens to ahve that art in it.
What are they suppose to do sensor everything?
1) yes, TV shows and Movies already do this (but not for tattoos, which is an interesting point that I did not consider before BoberFett brought it up)
I can assure you in scripted TV nothing is incidental. Dunno about the reality side but I see TMZ blurring labels and brands all the time.
Are you saying trademarks only apply to specific images and not a likeness, doofus? Just change one pixel of an image and it's legit! Way to go.
1) yes, TV shows and Movies already do this (but not for tattoos, which is an interesting point that I did not consider before BoberFett brought it up)
2) seems like the artist lost 1.1 million in potential licensing revenues, which he is now going to court over.
lol how? Sounds like a fake money situation to me, I doubt he actually has 1.1 million less than what he had before. That's the issue with this copryight stuff, numbers literally get made up on the spot despite nobody actually losing any real money.