{"id":8118,"date":"2020-03-30T10:38:28","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T14:38:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/?p=8118"},"modified":"2020-04-17T11:06:23","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T15:06:23","slug":"tattoo-dispute-fades-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/tattoo-dispute-fades-away\/","title":{"rendered":"Tattoo Dispute Fades Away"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Tattooed work of art<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Much like painters or musicians, tattoo artists are creators in their own right.\u00a0 However, are their inked canvases considered unique designs worthy of copyright protection?\u00a0 Solid Oak Sketches seemed to think so, as the company filed a lawsuit against producers of NBA 2K video games, including Take-Two Interactive Software.\u00a0 In 2016, the tattoo licensing firm accused NBA 2K of embodying athletes such as LeBron James, Eric Bledsoe, and Kenyon Martin with their real-life tattoos in the video games, without properly compensating the artists who tattooed them.\u00a0 That lawsuit, initially filed in a Manhattan court, was just dismissed this month.<\/p>\n

The plaintiffs provided a sound argument behind what constitutes a copyrightable work of art.\u00a0 For one, tattoos are a type of drawing or sketch, defined under one of the criteria of the Copyright Act of 1976.\u00a0 Tattoos are also positively recognized<\/a> as new and inspired forms of expression, tangibly visible on the body of the person tattooed.\u00a0 The tattoo is present to the eye.\u00a0 Based on the listed categories under which a work is considered deserving of copyright protection, the plaintiffs in this case developed a seemingly strong case.<\/p>\n

While artists may claim ownership of their tattoos, individuals whose bodies are offered as the murals to these artists may see themselves as the owners of the tattoos.\u00a0 LeBron James, in particular, responded in favor of the defendants in this lawsuit, stating that his tattoos are characteristic of his identity.\u00a0 The absence of his tattoos in the video games would provide an inaccurate representation of his player.\u00a0 The judge assigned to the case ruled in favor of dismissing<\/a> the plaintiff’s claim, rationalizing that because the tattoos are not included in the marketing of the games, they are not used for profitable gain.\u00a0 The tattoos displayed within the games are so tiny on fast moving players, that it is almost impossible to detect or even distinguish the tattoos.\u00a0 That leaves video game makers in the lead, ahead of tattoo artists, 1-0.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much like painters or musicians, tattoo artists are creators in their own right.\u00a0 However, are their inked canvases considered unique designs worthy of copyright protection?\u00a0 Solid Oak Sketches seemed to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":230,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[548],"tags":[146,1161,2539,1745],"class_list":["post-8118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lawsuits","tag-copyright-2","tag-intellectual-property","tag-tattoo","tag-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/230"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8118"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8155,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8118\/revisions\/8155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.lawyer.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}