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Photographer Sues Kat Von D over Miles Davis Tattoo
- mzs 6y ago>The problem is, Kat Von D never requested or received a license or permission from Sedlik to reproduce the photo, which has been sold with a non-exclusive license for reproduction, distribution, and display ever since its creation back in 1989. Which PP reproduces and distributes from the electronic court filing.
- nacs 6y agoThere are exceptions for journalism / reporting news.
- ceejayoz 6y ago17 U.S. Code § 107 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/107 > the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright
- dvt 6y agoNot a lawyer, and this is an incredibly complex legal matter, but I think precedent hints that when media are crossed (e.g. going from photo to paint, or from paint to woodcutting, or, like in this case, photo to tattoo), the work is (usually) transformative enough. There are two tests the judge will look at: (1) Originality, and (2) Transformativeness. Obviously, the courts will litigate this (or it's going to be settled out of court, like in the Obama poster case[1]). Interesting edge-case nonetheless. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/arts/design/13fairey.html http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/arts/design/13fairey.html
- leviathant 6y agoThe language is fuzzy enough that it depends on how good and/or persistent your lawyers are. Coincidentally, a different photographer's photo of Miles Davis caused a copyright stink over an chiptune tribute album's artwork about a decade ago: https://www.litigationandtrial.com/2011/06/articles/attorney/trademark-copyright-infringement/kind-of-bloop-an-statutory-damages/ https://www.litigationandtrial.com/2011/06/articles/attorney...
- breck 6y ago> this is an incredibly complex legal matter I disagree. It's a simple matter: copyright laws abridge "the freedom of speech, or of the press" and should be outlawed by the 1st amendment. If that doesn't work for you they also violate the 4th Amendment ("The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures"). If that doesn't work for you there's the 13th amendment "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude...shall exist within the United States". Or maybe the XIVth "nor shall any State deprive any person of...property, without due process of law". If you are prevented from doing harmless things with your property, then you are deprived of your property. The bottom line is copyrights and patents are bad laws from first principles, and completely in conflict with the rest of our values and ideals. Sure, in the body of the text they are permitted, but so was human slavery and the right of only white men to vote. We need to fix this and #AbolishImaginaryProperty #EndCopyrights #EndPatents
- FemmeAndroid 6y agoYou can't expect a constitutional amendment to completely nullify half of a fairly clear clause of the constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8) just because an activist interpretation of that amendment might go against it. That's not how constitutional amendments work.
- jjeaff 6y agoThat is how amendments work. They amend or change the constitution. But maybe that's not what you meant. I agree there is little chance of changing that particular clause.
- jasonjayr 6y agoThere are tons of people out there with Disney IP tattooed on their body. I've always been curious on their stance, or if tattoo artists are just hush-hush on drawing other's characters or trademarks. Has there been any previous case law on whether or not this is allowed?
- 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 6y agoIANAL, that said I guess this falls under the "not going to complain about free marketing" category, even if they technically could. From the eyes of the biggest IP holders there is little chance of someone mistaking their creations for the work of someone else, and preserving the roots in pop culture is probably valued much higher than licensing. Not tattoos, but games look at a similar situation with videos and streaming, most companies welcome the free advertising or encourage it heavily. But there are gaming companies famous for exercising a strong grip on content creation, most prominently japanese companies likes ATLUS [1]. [1]: https://atlus.com/note-persona-5-streaming/ https://atlus.com/note-persona-5-streaming/
- sorenjan 6y agoThere are multiple tattoos of Disney and Nintendo characters engaging in various sexual activities, which both companies normally seem allergic to.
- ta1234567890 6y agoVery interesting point. Could an argument be made that since Disney has never defended this, then they have no right to complain now? (At least trademark is supposed to work that way - you lose it if you don’t actively enforce it).
- BoysenberryPi 6y agoIANAL but the idea that you lose your trademark if you don't actively enforce it is not true except in rare edge cases. Whether or not this is an edge case is up to the courts.
- nacs 6y agoRidiculous. It’s not like the tatoo was printed with a machine on to the persons body - it’s a essentially a drawing by eye by the tatoo-artist. I wonder if the photographer would sue if the drawing/tatoo wasn’t as good and was more crude?
- RHSeeger 6y agoWhile I fall on the side of the tattoo being transformative... I disagree with the sentiment that "a drawing by eye" is especially relevant. To take another medium as an example, if I listen to a song and then release a cover of it by ear, then I believe that would fall afoul of copyright laws. That seems like a pretty direct parallel.
- rainbowzootsuit 6y agoFor music there's a predefined cost Mechanical License that covers the licensing cost of most music you'd want to cover. For visual art there's no centralized structure like this, so you're at the whim of the original artist or counting on fair use. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_license https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_license
- foateaca 6y agoThe purpose of copyright is to promote science and arts, not to make money.
- otterley 6y agoThere are few incentives for producing scientific and artistic advancement that are as powerful as monetary gain.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- m1sta_ 6y agoPromotion via control. The person afforded that control can use it to fund their art or encourage future artists.
- ahoy 6y agoin spirit perhaps, in practice not so much
- t-writescode 6y agoThe purpose of copyright is exactly to make money. The purpose of patents is to promote (edit: scientific research). Giving someone money for the book they wrote for the rest of their life plus some time is all about money.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
- schwartzworld 6y agoAny argument that this is infringement must be predicated on how accurate the tattoo is to the original photo. The artist would never think to sue if it wasn't executed so expertly. Where do you draw the lines? Is it infringement if you draw a picture while looking at another picture? What if you do it from memory?
- m1sta_ 6y agoCopyright law is pretty clear on this one. She's not in a great spot.
- t-writescode 6y agoFrom your comment, I have no idea where you think copyright law is on this issue.
- vinger 6y agoI thought we all could agree nothing is clear cut here. Courts will be involved and laws defined in a long expensive process.
- sigzero 6y agoNo it's not. The article even says that as well.
- PeterisP 6y agoThe quality of execution is not a factor - a sloppy copy is a derivative work just as a very good copy. (If the result is substantially transformative - which is very, very different from an expertly executed copy, other factors might apply). If the tattoo was executed poorly, the artist might never think to sue, but they would be exactly as justified to sue as in this case.
- 100ideas 6y agoReminds me of the "Kind of Bloop" fiasco 10 years ago: https://waxy.org/2011/06/kind_of_screwed/ https://waxy.org/2011/06/kind_of_screwed/ > Remember Kind of Bloop, the chiptune tribute to Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue that I produced? I went out of my way to make sure the entire project was above board, licensing all the cover songs from Miles Davis’s publisher and giving the total profits from the Kickstarter fundraiser to the five musicians that participated. > But there was one thing I never thought would be an issue: the cover art. > Before the project launched, I knew exactly what I wanted for the cover — a pixel art recreation of the original album cover, the only thing that made sense for an 8-bit tribute to Kind of Blue. I tried to draw it myself, but if you’ve ever attempted pixel art, you know how demanding it is. After several failed attempts, I asked a talented friend to do it.
- chordalkeyboard 6y agoThat is incredibly fucked.
- gedy 6y agoI suspect photographers will disagree, but a 31 year old photo of a long deceased person, hand copied to another medium does not ethically feel like infringement to me.
- Zak 6y agoThe only part of this that's legally relevant is "hand copied to another medium", which might make it sufficiently transformative to be fair use. Ethically, I'm inclined to agree that copyright currently lasts too long, though I'm not sure I'd call 31 years, with the author of the copyrighted work still being alive too long.
- throwsed 6y agoThe photographer seems to focus an awful lot on legal matters: https://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-letter-forum/pro-photographer-expert-witness-sedlik-comments-on-copyright-infringements/ https://www.extortionletterinfo.com/forum/getty-images-lette... Pure speculation: Perhaps, in this particular case he was provoked by Kat Von D (short for Drachenberg), whose Wikipedia-quote includes a quote from a jewish magazine calling her an "anti-jew": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kat_Von_D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kat_Von_D
- sorenjan 6y agoHe wants $150,000 for a 32 year old picture. That's just greedy. Imagine how much Disney will make from tattoo royalties if this gets accepted.
- steve_adams_86 6y agoI think part of the deal with asks like $150k for damages like this are a) lawyers will eat a lot of it and b) if the judge sides with the original artist, they might not award the full amount anyway. Ultimately they may just end up with the licensing fee they lost and some compensation for time lost having to chase that fee. It seems greedy but it might be more indicative of a dysfunctional legal system? I’m not sure, just adding a couple cents.
- adwi 6y agoThat figure is for damages, presumably the number would have been lower if her team hadn't ignored the copyright owner trying to reach out directly—and much lower if they'd asked for a license before the tattoo. > Plaintiff Jeffrey Sedlik reached out to Kat Von D 'artist to artist' (through her representatives) seeking an amicable resolution of the matter prior to filing suit, but Ms. Von Drachenberg chose to ignore Mr. Sedlik’s good faith effort to avoid litigation. [from linked Billboard article]
- nuclear_eclipse 6y agoIt's legal negotiation. You sue for the maximum allowable penalty/damages in hopes of settling for something in between the maximum and zero.
- annoyingnoob 6y agoI'm not sure what to make of a lawyer representing himself on a work from over 30 years ago. Comes across as greedy.
- bavila 6y agoJust a technical note: The artist is not representing himself. The artist is Jeffrey Sedlik. The attorney is Gary Sedlik. They're obviously related, but not the same person.
- jetrink 6y ago"19. Sedlik requires that all licensed reproductions of The Iconic Miles Davis Portrait include Sedlik’s copyright management information." I hope he would make an exception in the case of a tattoo. I can't imagine going through life with a copyright notice or a © symbol tattooed on my body.
- brailsafe 6y agoI can't imagine going through life with a tattoo the size of my entire upper arm of someone's photo. The copyright symbol could at least arguably be ironic.
- junon 6y agoYour personal life experiences and subjective viewpoints about how to utilize one's own body do not trump others'. If you do not want a tattoo, that is fine, but your distaste toward them should not influence others' abilities to do the same.
- brailsafe 6y agoThank you for insight. I hadn't considered that others might have a different opinion. All sarcasm aside, to take it to a logical and pedantic extreme, even while I wouldn't want someone to change their body based on my opinion, you probably wouldn't want someone to tattoo themselves with black face or a swastika, so I don't entirely agree.
- junon 6y agoNeither of those things are representative of those with tattoos, and are a pretty small outlier. Reductio ad absurdum, in my opinion. That being said, I wouldn't personally care. Not my life to live and I don't have time to police the actions of others. Plus, I'm sure they'll face their own set of issues related to such imagery that go far beyond anything I could do about it.
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- aaron695 6y agoI guess it's somewhat off topic but tattoo artists will often sue media companies using their tattoo's that the media company is copying from clients bodies. Famously The Hangover Part II also Take Two - https://screenrant.com/wwe-randy-orton-tattoo-artist-sues-take-two/ https://screenrant.com/wwe-randy-orton-tattoo-artist-sues-ta...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hammock 6y ago>“While Von D no doubt used Sedlik’s photo as a reference, the process is not as simple as running someone’s body through a photocopy machine." This line is insulting. HN can understand, there is nothing simple about a photocopy machine. Kat Von D could probably create her own tattoo tools, but could she create her own photocopy machine?
- Trias11 6y agoPhotog maybe pissed off but he aint getting $150,000 in this life for this. In the best case the talented tatoo lady maybe forced to pay some of the fees she collected for tatoo work. His abmulance chasers may scream "damages" for as long as they want but this is no win for him and them. Good advertisement for the lady, well deserved, great work. PS: I used to work as a professional photographer and I had artist asking me to buy exclusive license to paint a picture off my photo of a famous horse jumper in action. I sold it to her for $20. Come on! Everyone is happy.
- OzzyB 6y agoPhotographers are one of the few subsets of artists that have benefitted greatly from Copyright Law; that and Songwriters. Everyone else gets to eat cake. I mean, who made "photography" an "art" anyway that deserved to have such protections? I mean, come on, all you did was be at the right time at the right place and took a fucking picture, with a camera no less. And, don't get me started on how badly drummers have been screwed under this "copyright law". I'm too busy sampling the "Amen Break" for the thousandth time...
- pietrrrek 6y ago> I mean, who made "photography" an "art" anyway that deserved to have such protections? I mean, come on, all you did was be at the right time at the right place and took a fucking picture, with a camera no less. If that were the case, everyone would be a great photographer. Being able to envision a shot and then also being able to execute it (prepare for it, shoot it and process it afterwards) is not as simple as "being at the right place and right time".
- nojokes 6y agoRegardless of your claims, this portrait is a studio photograph and requires very careful setup of lights and also clear direction by the photographer.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- LegitShady 6y agoJust because you use a camera to snap pictures without careful consideration to light composition or subject doesn't mean that's how everyone else does it.
- bogomipz 6y agoThere's an incredible irony in your uniformed views. You suggest that photography couldn't possibly be art because it involves technology and then you go on to talk about the indignity of the "Amen Break" which itself only gained popularity because of sampling technology. In fact the same can be said for all the break beats on the "Ultimate Breaks and Beats" compilations. Much of early Hip Hop was the result of sampling technology[2]. Is Hip Hop not art either since by your reductionist logic all someone did was press a button? It's also worth mentioning the Winston's B-side of "Amen Brother" from which the "Amen Break was sampled is itself a derivative work. That track is actually based on the Impression's track "Amen" itself a traditional Gospel song[1] as well as a top 50 hit in the same year the Winston's recorded it. However the Winston's credited themselves with the songwriting. The outrage and sympathy seem to be pretty well cherry-picked when you consider all these facts. It made for good headlines for a while though. Drum part's aren't copyrightable for the sole reason that they are not songwriting but rather are accompaniment. And they are copyrighted in the context of the master recording. Trying to imagine a world in which drum parts are copyright is an exercise in insanity. The classic Bo Diddley drum beat while one of the most recognizable beats was certainly not invented by Clifton James. Nor would he ever claim he did. It has roots in Afro-Cuban music and in fact goes all the way back to the Yoruba in Western Africa. Anyone who has ever been to Carnival or Mardi Gras knows this beat. How exactly would such copyright litigation unfold? By the way nobody "made photography an art." Like all new mediums it was once hotly debated whether it was art or not. That debate ended a long time ago however. You would be hard pressed to find anyone who has looked at the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe or Ansel Adams conclude that it wasn't art. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_(gospel_song) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_(gospel_song) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Breaks_and_Beats https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Breaks_and_Beats
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- xlii 6y agoLegal matters aside this is quite interesting from moral point of view. Sure, 30 years is long and 150k USD is a lot, but where one draws the line? I imagine that photographer would like to earn money for the photo he took. Probably such photographer only has couple of those shot throughout lifetime and it’s quite obvious he’s trying to make a living out of it. One could criticize greediness and time, but should it be 1$ and 1 day instead? On the other hand we have tattoo artist that reproduced 1:1 photo to skin. It probably was hard and required a lot of skill and experience. My guess is that artist should have the source material. Should they create all of it? If not should they have permission of the source material? And there is third side - using sourced work as a marketing material. Would drawing straight rectangle both on client’s arm and showing it on photo of “work in progress” had the same marketing effect as using famous photo? Instagram brings money too and this specific piece of work was used to boost it. I understand the need and also myself I would like art to be free, but in the end artist (such as photographer or tattoo artist) has to eat, I’m not really sure how one could settle this without a fight though.
- RHSeeger 6y agoIt seems like there's an interesting parallel between this case and the one where the tattoo artist sued NBA 2K for their artwork appearing in their game (as it is _part_ of the player that appeared in the game). Judge Rules in Favor of 'NBA 2K' Creators in Case Brought by Tattoo Artists https://www.si.com/nba/2020/04/06/nba-2k-ruling-tattoo-artists https://www.si.com/nba/2020/04/06/nba-2k-ruling-tattoo-artis...
- brailsafe 6y agoI'm glad the judge ruled in favour of NBA 2k, because damn would that set an unfortunate precedent.
- Brian_K_White 6y agoIsn't the tattoo a performance? Like paying a secretary to type up a copy of a novel for you, or paying a musician to perform songs? As for the copy & distribution aspect of instagram, don't the copies have to be plausibly usable as stand-ins for the real thing? Are any of those pics of such quality that you can frame them and otherwise use them instead of the original? Then again, don't you need to negotiate rights to include even small samples of someone else's song in your own? The sample nor the new song certianly can't stand in for the original. Maybe IF the tattoo artist included pics of the original alongside her own work, then she just needs to do whatever petapixel did to include their copy in this article? Did they have to do anything much? I think both the tattoos and the pictures of the tattoos are safe but any copies of the original on instagram etc is probably a much less cut and dried question. But it doesn't sound like tbis can possibly be a new problem that hasn't been hashed out 100 times in 100 essentially equivalent cases by now since decades ago, maybe even literally involving tattoo artists.
- grawprog 6y agoI'm honestly not the most knowledgeable in this, but from what I can see it's actually two separate issues. The first was the actual tattoo, but the second was the instagram posts using the tattoo and picture. I could be wrong, but I feel like, as for the issue of the tattoo itself, that's going to end up amounting to nothing. The publicity pictures on the other hand may be more of an issue. As far as my very ignorant opinion, likely not based on reality or laws goes... Copyright on a photo should apply to direct copies being used in in ways photos are typically used. Paintings, tattoos, etc. of photos should not fall under 'usage of a photo' as far as copyrights go. It's ridiculous. It doesn't matter how photorealistic somebody can paint a picture, it's still not the same picture. It's not identical, the medium is not the same, and they're not even competing for the same...I guess...pool of money?...I dunno how to word that...but they don't tend to interfere in eachother's markets. It just doesn't seem reasonable to me.
- tossertosser 6y agoI like all your points, but I think them all kinda... irrelevant? Being 'dinged' what could easily be more than $150k is a penalty that is almost certain to have massive repercussions on someone's life. Even if we assume complete guilt, full knowledge of the law, and willful intent to disregard it to do the job... in what world is it sane to economically trash someone's life over a mistake like this?
- ElectricMind 6y agoHe is so worried about photo being used by others then he should keep it locked in his underground store house. This is just pure greed. If Time uses it as "Picture of the year" the he was okay, but now he sees some other person making money by working hard - he wants free piece of action. Honestly owner of the picture should "person" in the picture. Photographer do not own reality!
- mchusma 6y agoCopyright is messed up. It should definitely be shorter, or require annual registration fees that grow exponentially, or something. Society loses with copyright law the way it is. I suspect exponential growing registration fees is something that is more likely to get done, because people like Disney will pay for valuable asset protection but every random work from 20+ years ago is fine. So like $0 copyright for 20 years, then $1,000 for 5 year extension, $10,000 for next 5 year extension, $100,000 for next 5 year extension, $1,000,000 for next 5 years etc.