When can you say a tattoo is a copy ?

Around the end of august last year, I went to Mikado and asked him to draw for me an Eastern Phoebe and a Tufted Titmouse, one would have a lock on its stomach and the other one would be holding a key in its beak. I brought pictures of what these two favorite birds species of mine looked like and he took the mesures on my stomach... He quickly came up with a wonderful design which was exactly what I was looking for. After the first session all the outlines were drawn and I took a picture :



Gildas the Titmouse and Clermont the Phoebe were born. They are both a tribute to my love for birds and to my father who wanted to get a tattoo of a bird but died too early to do so, in 2008. That's the most meaningful tattoo I got for the moment.

A month or so later I went back to Mikado to get these lovelies filled with colors. That was probably the most horrible tattoo session I had, I went back to my house with a strong fever and slept for the rest of the day^^ But it was worth it !


Nice story.

Around hm... may? I got a PM over here from Lapsus, sending me a link to this picture on Tumblr :



Looks a bit like Gildas right ? The funniest thing is that you can tell she based it on the first picture (with just the outlines) because the tattoo artist copied the perspective and so the bird has a way shorter tail than it should.
As soon as I saw that, I tried to contact the girl who got that tattoo. Thanks to some friends who are better stalkers than me I was able to look at her tumblr, facebook, twitter and so on (internet is a wonderful land). Then I contacted her, then some friends did the same... but she didn't care, she said she had no regrets and that some things are more important than stupid tattoos like the fact that her father just died. Oh the irony.

This story ended on some friend's blogs and also forums I had no idea about. It gave me the possibility to read about what happened from many point of views and generally people were either infuriated or did not see what was the big deal. So, when can you say a tattoo is a copy ?
Most of the people reacting about this were wondering if the tattoo was an original design or not. In other words if I had found these birds in a book and then this girl found my picture and got them, then it wouldn't be a copy? Do you think copying a design, no matter if it's on someone's skin or on a piece of paper, is the same? Just a plain casual way to get a tattoo?
My point of view, but maybe it's just me, is that finding a design in a book or even just a picture you like on the wonderful interweb and thinking "that would make a great tattoo, I want this on my skin" is already a way more personal approach than searching for tattoos that already look good and thinking "yup, I want the same!" Sorry but I despise this kind of people. To me getting a tattoo is taking the risk to ink forever on your skin something that translate a feeling, a passion, a moment of your life (or a silly joke uh) that MEANS SOMETHING to you. But I guess some people just want "something pretty" or something that caught their eyes when they googled bird key tattoo





Yes, probably.

Ohhh wait, the second one! It's been redesigned! Yes, I contacted the girl who got these... " I told my friend what i had in mind for years now and she put it to paper." What a great and creative friend. (btw thanks to fuckyeahtattoos ! and particularly piratekitten for contacting me about these tattoos).

I'll have a pride rise here and will dare to say that none of these people know the species of the birds they have on their skin...

Oh well, it's my fault, I posted a pic of this tattoo on internet, I should have know better!! right?

In the end I don't mind being copied and Mikado is fine with it as well. And I'm not the only one, far from that. I just can't get over the fact that some people are apparently too stupid and boring to make their own silly birds holding a stupid key... it's such a basic idea... next time I'll get this. It looks good and that's just what matters to me!