8 ms·
Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos – a Problem for Video Game Developers
- mbrumlow 8y agoSeems to me the only logical thing to do in a digital world is to abadon the idea of intellectual property?
- watt 8y agoThis with the other article doing some troll logic mental gymnastics trying to convince us that dance moves/choreography should be copyrightable[1] (or intellectual property) really brings out the point how absurd the notion of IP/copyright is. When will we see that the whole thing is a sham and needs to be abandoned? https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/20/18149869/fortnite-dance-emote-lawsuit-milly-rock-floss-carlton https://www.theverge.com/2018/12/20/18149869/fortnite-dance-...
- userbinator 8y agoWhen will we see that the whole thing is a sham and needs to be abandoned? Never, as long as there's enough people getting $$$ from it (and have the power to influence such decisions.)
- Nasrudith 8y agoTo be fair they could also push it far enough to lead to a collapse by competitive disadvantage from choosing stability over progress. That has happened before at very least once when Commodore Perry came a-knocking with a gunship to Japan.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoHonestly if I'm playing a Basketball game the last thing I care about is the detail on tattoos, just parody them... This isn't such a crucial issue at the end of the day, I don't think you should be able to copyright a tattoo, the design may change as the person ages, or gets into a crazy accident, or whatever. Heck, when they die and decompose / get cremated it's all gone.
- HelloFellowDevs 8y ago> “My tattoos are a part of my persona and identity,” Mr. James wrote in a declaration of support for Take-Two and 2K Games. “If I am not shown with my tattoos, it wouldn’t really be a depiction of me.” It comes down to how realistic you want the game to be. With games that pitch themselves as the pinnacle of being realistic with improvements made every year, not having the correct tattoos would break the realism. Especially when the most important athlete of his sports generation says that too.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoThat's a bit crazy to me, but if that's how he feels, it's not like any other game will get any closer to it, that or they can blur the tattoo can't they? On another note, if I buy a canvas painting from another artist, and then I sell it for millions, but only paid $500 for said painting, can the painter sue me for copyright despite the painting being my property? If not... why are tattoos any different?
- wmil 8y agoBecause you aren't copying it. First sale doctrine, you're allowed to resell your copy.
- giancarlostoro 8y agoAh right, so it would only be an issue if I were to start selling copies of the painting that I forged, stole or something.
- gambiting 8y agoNo, what's happening here is the same as if you had a painting in your house, but for some reason pictures of your house were very popular and seen by millions of people - and they all included the painting. You never made a copy of the painting, but it's now featured on a lot of different media that the original author never agreed to. I still think it's BS, the tattoo on your body is YOU - not a separate thing to you.
- tyfon 8y agoThis sounds ridiculous to me. So if someone snaps a photo of him or he is on TV the tattooist is going to get royalties? That goes for anyone else that is tattooed as well.
- kbsletten 8y agoNo idea, but it seems like the news is allowed an exemption from royalties because of "fair use" or whatever they call it in Europe now (maybe "protected use" or something).
- wccrawford 8y ago"Lawyers generally agree that an implied license allows people to freely display their tattoos in public, including on television broadcasts or magazine covers. " Seems to me that the digital representation of someone is just another way of displaying themselves. If it's legal to do it in photos and videos, it's legal to do it in 3D models. But even without that, I think it's unethical to claim ownership to any part of someone else's body and tell them what they can and can't do with it. (Laws are an obvious exception to this.)
- talltimtom 8y agoYou are suggesting that since it’s legal for me to share a fanphoto of myself and Mike Tyson, then by extension I should be allowed to use his likeness in a 3D model in a computer game. If rights did really get passed on that loosely, then celebrities would have no way of monetizing their own brand.
- Ensorceled 8y agoThat’s not at all the same.
- xoa 8y ago>You are suggesting that since it’s legal for me to share a fanphoto of myself and Mike Tyson, then by extension I should be allowed to use his likeness in a 3D model in a computer game. No, that's not what they're suggesting at all, and you're conflating two separate things here. Using someone's likeness in a commercial work is already legally protected (in the most economically important jurisdictions anyway) and is different from mere publishing of a legal photo for which the copyright is owned (for which no permission is needed by default). The argument is that if you received Mike Tyson's agreement (or that of his authorized legal agent of course) to use his likeness in a game, then a 3rd party should not have veto over Mike Tyson's ability to allow use simply because they were paid to make a tattoo for him. It'd be his likeness, and he should be the sole decider of that absent compelling public interest otherwise (such as political commentary or criticism). If somebody else does some work with our bodies, their interest in that should be exhausted instantly by the payment they receive for that service (or by nothing if they volunteered). It's our bodies we're talking about here, one of the most personal things about a human. At the very least this should be the default, though personally I'd lean towards this being something that is immutable as well and cannot be contractually signed away either. I don't think the can of worms it opens is worth any possible public gain from body royalties.
- Tepix 8y agoFirst world problems indeed.
- gammateam 8y agoMy favorite kind of problems to have.
- genieyclo 8y agohttps://www.gq.com/story/jr-smith-supreme-tattoo-nba https://www.gq.com/story/jr-smith-supreme-tattoo-nba
- tbirrell 8y agoShouldn't purchasing the tattoo transfer the rights to the person being tattooed?
- leetcrew 8y agopurchasing a work of art usually does not give you the rights to reproduce the piece.
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y agoBut purchasing the time for a person to create a work for you generally does give you the rights, as a work for hire. Thus temporary tattoos would be copyrightable, but permanent ones that are created only once should not.
- leetcrew 8y ago> But purchasing the time for a person to create a work for you generally does give you the rights, as a work for hire AFAIK, this still needs to be explicitly stated in the agreement/contract. by default the creator always owns the IP they create (in the US). this is why software companies have to explicitly state that they will own the product of your work when they hire you.
- talltimtom 8y agoThey could purchase the rights along with the tatoo, but in most cases likely haven’t.
- ozim 8y agoAs a developer I also have to have rights to code transferred to company in contract even though company pays me for that code. So you basically have to have contract for it, it is not by default you pay for it you own rights. Though it is kind of funny when it goes for a tattoo, just never thought about it. It is not like you want to have contract for a tattoo unless you are LeBron...
- tgb 8y agoIf you hire an artist to paint a landscape for you, do you have total ownership of that painting? Could you recreate it digitally and sell it? Assume no extra rights were explicitly transferred, just a standard commission of a piece of art, whatever that entails. I would have assumed that the answers to these were both yes, but this article makes me think not.
- pubby 8y agoNot in the USA and most countries.
- csours 8y agoPurchasing art does not give me the right to copy and resell it, Ok; but contracting an artist surely gives me the right to copy and resell the art? Or are you saying that the contract must explicitly state what formats are included in the contract?
- tempestn 8y agoThe contract would have to explicitly give you the right to copy, yes.
- number6 8y agoAll of the statet rights belong to the artist and better be explicitly transferred to you in a contract. Including the formats and the right to edit. Just about everything you can Imagen...
- kbsletten 8y agoBetween a wedding, maternity and newborn photos (x2), I can tell you that just because you're paying somebody to take pictures, does not mean you have any copyright. People (esp. small-time people) are starting to sell the rights but it's far from a given and it has to be stated in the contract.
- stevehawk 8y agoYou don't. It's a common topic in game development that if you hire a contract artist that the contract needs to explicitly state that you retain the rights of the work they produce for your project, otherwise they can yank those rights should you have a falling out.
- davidw 8y agoI'm old enough to remember when players were a few blocky pixels... the notion of tattoos mattering is pretty amazing.
- AWildC182 8y agoDisregarding the insanity of being able to wave your rights to a commissioned piece of artwork, that you paid for, that's attached to your body...I think we really need to rethink how video game content licencing works in the context of copyright law. This is just the current iteration of a debacle that has been ongoing since the first days of video games. Depictions of everyday things are suddenly the property of the original creator of those things, even if they are commodity items or very simplistic depictions. A good example is when video game developers have to pay gun makers to depict their weapons in games. I love FPS games but I would rather not have my money ultimately funneled into the NRA lobbying machine.
- clarry 8y agoYea, I'm really frustrated with this situation as it relates to racing games. Apparently it's ok to shoot photos and movies with real cars in them, but you need to get a license to sell a game that models real cars? Nnngh. I think it's insane. And these games vanish from stores as licenses expire.
- exabrial 8y agoWhat about a surgeon that alters a person's appearance?
- wmil 8y agoLets get weirder. Can a plastic surgeon own the rights to someone's nose? It's basically a sculpture.
- wycs 8y agoIt’s almost like intellectual property is an absurd injustice.
- geggam 8y agoThe concept that any individual is the only entity capable of creating a specific work is simply false. The artificial limitations on creativity are impeding economic growth and need to be removed
- cpburns2009 8y agoIt's more that IP laws have not been kept up to date with advances in technology.
- PurpleBoxDragon 8y agoEspecially since it escapes taxation. If you taxed IP like you do real property, we would see quite a different system form.
- larkeith 8y agoThat's an interesting point. Has taxing IP ever been investigated and/or implemented? What were the conclusions?
- kstrauser 8y agoI wrote up a proposal for just that and sent it to Dianne Feinstein. I'm still waiting to hear back.
- pacoWebConsult 8y agoShe'll hold onto it until it's convenient to expose, just like she did with the Blasey-Ford allegations.
- xte 8y agoBWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Welcome in post-capitalistic absurd world. End there are still some people who say "hey we are in a free market"...
- dang 8y agoCould you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to Hacker News? Especially the flamebait kind. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18770963 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18770963 also breaks the site guidelines. If you could please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and follow the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.
- xte 8y agoI do not notice that space at the beginning of the line act like a pre tag. Sorry for that. For the rest I do not think having posted anything more "flamebait" than the article itself and certainly not violating any site guideline. Few times I use all capitals to emphasis a single world more than simple '' or '_', veeeery rarely I use all caps for very few worlds as I do in the real world when I civilly and polity I raise my voice a little bit. I do not* find that nor impolite nor flamebait. Also to my European eye certain kind of news like "copyrighted tattoos" sound really a joke. I understand that the world is vary so something normal in a country may not be normal in another, and I do my best in general to respect others, as others respect me. I do not think HN is a diplomat discussion platforms like G7 o similar high-level meetings so I assume that in any country of the world, on a formally free speech platform, especially if it's named after Hacker cultures, one of the most free modern cultures we have seen in human history certain kind of relaxed expressions are ok. I do not buy the idea to be all silent, to ban all "strong" concepts, to say that anything is ok etc typical of certain dictatorial regimes. Hacker culture is free and remain free even on a proprietary platform with certainly not free communication model by it's nature. Also I do not see anything disturbing in remark how certain kind of use of "gamification" are not proper to a free culture nor can be considered positive or kind.
- dang 8y ago
- AndrewKemendo 8y ago"He is just poaching on artists" This is silly. No game developer or otherwise is including an athlete's Tattoo as a selling or differentiation point for a game. Said another way, nobody is buying a game in order to see Lebron's Crown tattoo. If the artwork was original and not-player specific such that a user could purchase it as DLC or something similar to place on a custom character there would certainly be a case. Seems like the legal construct of body artwork not being owned, but rather licensed to the person who it was tattooed on is the problem.
- pgrote 8y ago>No game developer or otherwise is including an athlete's Tattoo as a selling or differentiation point for a game. Said another way, nobody is buying a game in order to see Lebron's Crown tattoo. There seems to be an appreciation of it by those who play the game. The linked video in the article showing Mike Evans tattoos seemed to be newsworthy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvzTrtXXJ5I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvzTrtXXJ5I
- onetimemanytime 8y agoIf I hire someone to paint a portrait, and pay him it's mine isn't it? $5 or $5 million, that was the price agreed. Why is the tattoo any different?
- Joeri 8y agoNo, that’s not typically the case. Mostly copyright remains with the artist that made the painting. https://www.thoughtco.com/who-owns-copyright-of-a-painting-2578104 https://www.thoughtco.com/who-owns-copyright-of-a-painting-2... The reality of copyright law is that strictly applied pretty much everyone breaks it. Some infractions are worth enforcing, most are not.
- Johnny555 8y agoI think that only applies to a "work for hire", which means it was done under regular employment for a company so the company owns it. If you commission a single work from an artist, then he retains the copyright (unless your contract says otherwise). So before you spend that $5 million commissioning a painting, have your lawyer look over the contract... likewise, before you get that $50 tattooed bunny on your ankle, read the paperwork, if the artist hasn't signed over the copyright to you, then he owns it.
- Shorel 8y ago"What many people don’t realize, legal experts said, is that the copyright is inherently owned by the tattoo artist, not the person with the tattoos." Now this will be my argument against having tattoos :)
- userbinator 8y agoThe whole point of copyright protection was to prevent someone from freely duplicating a work and thereby depriving the original artist of profit, but in the case of a tattoo, I'd argue that every artistic tattoo is so slightly different from each other and labour-intensive to create that it should really be treated as "work for hire" and the human who owns the skin also owns the tattoo on it.
- kstrauser 8y agoWhen I got a tattoo, I literally hired an artist to take my general design, make it look nice (and tweak it for the medium), and apply it. There's not part of that process that isn't work for hire.
- juliusmusseau 8y agoI'm just hoping DannyBee posts something to this thread! (He's a lawyer). https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=DannyBee https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=DannyBee
- pvaldes 8y agoOne of the problems is that a lot of athletes are massively tattooed currently. Tattoos were used since thousands of years for a particular job (apart of decorative purposes): They excel hiding needle marks. Tattoos with a pattern of multiple repeated x6 or x5 darkened areas arranged in a star or a circle could be particularly useful to mask a weekly routine of steroids delivered around some point of interest. In that sense some designs could be better than other and became equivalent to any other industrial secret for their owner. And this is only a part of the history. Tattoos showing trade marks or copyrighted art are another problem.
- jeklj 8y agoNot sure it makes sense that would be a problem for video games but not tv which broadcasts their tattoos the whole game.
- mnm1 8y agoBy this line of reasoning, companies don't own the code their engineers write either. Art collectors don't own the art they paid for. Etc. What a bunch of bullshit. Have these people not heard of work for hire? The artists were paid for their copyright (in addition to the actual manual work). They no longer own the copyright. That's the whole point of the transaction. That's the only reason money was exchanged. No one in their right mind would get a tattoo they couldn't display; something the artist could really demand if they held the copyright. Does something this obvious seriously need litigation? That is some serious misinterpretation of copyright law. As bad as our copyright laws are, they can't possibly be this bad to allow these obviously bullshit cases to stand, can they?
- ineedasername 8y agoIt seems like it might be a gray area (and, unfortunately as such, something the courts need to resolve) but it's disappointing that NYT did not at least broach the topic and possible applicability of the Work for Hire exception.
- vertline3 8y agoI feel intent should matter, is the intent to show the tattoo art? or to make a likeness recognizeable? Mike Tyson has a tattoo on his head, is the intent to convey a likeness of Tyson? or to sell the tattoo as a brand in itself(t shirts and such as a logo)? I mean is it fair use?