if i tried to copyright my Green Lantern tattoo would Warner Bros. (the owners of said license, and all DC Comics licenses) try and take my arm in the resulting lawsuit?
I like my arm. I'm attached to it. ::cue rimshot::

Nice first post +1

Have you seen how close to Amina's the infringing tattoo is?

No. She has no recourse against the cunt bubble who stole the work the first time, but she is protected against anyone else doing it.

it is so much older than disney

As someone who has tattoo work that is original and of extreme personal, emotional value, I can see why Amina is pissed. I'm sure I'm not alone there.

If people suddenly started getting plaid stars, it would probably make me feel like the 12 hours that went into just putting my family tartan on my body wasn't as big of a deal as it was-- (not to mention even finding an artist willing to tattoo tartan!) you know, an I-did-it-before-it-was-cool type thing?

and this guy got the exact same tattoo and the artist insulted her when she wanted an apology? I agree that she should have shoved every inch of her leg up his ass.

of course this guy could just say its a parody of amina's tattoo. which wouldnt be far from the truth at all...

i still dont understand how this is different from any of the other billions of tattoos of trademarked, copywritten images (black flag, dead kennedys, pac man, akaline trio, misfits, smashing pumpkins, etc...)

glenn dazing is going to sue henry rollins for his trademarked misfits ghost tattoo?

that's really a moot point. Graphic designers sell their rights every day. When I design a logo, I charge a specific fee to the company to buy the rights to that logo. Once it passes to them, they can do whatever the hell they want with it. On the other hand, if they dont' buy the rights, I'm well within my rights to sue them if, say, I designed them a logo to use on a website, and they take it and make a billboard out of it.

Logos are just a different form of art, graphic artists are still artists.

There are a myriad of differneces between those two cases.

I'll just cite the most glaring difference between these two cases: Rollins was not, I presume, trying to pass off the Misfits' logo as his own work.

And I don't see how you could call it a parodic work. It is pretty nearly identical. Any differences are only superficial. The derivative work in no way comments on the original work but instead seeks to imitate both it's execution and market effect, that is to say the fact that it is a body decoration. Had the artist, for example, modified the design to be a more grotesque or cartoony version, something that sought to use the original design towards another purpose, that would qualify as parody.

If I write a song that goes, "Hey Jude, don't make it sad, take a bad song and make it better", just because I'm making some superficial alterations doesn't mean I've written a parody. It's essentially the same song.

Now that's parody!

[Edited on Mar 10, 2006 by Clov]

Fuck copyright laws, fuck intellectual property; it's all a bunch of fucking hypocrisy. If I got a tattoo, I'd get it copylefted. Maybe I'll get a tattoo of the copyleft symbol. That would kick ass.

That's the attitude that left blues and R&B artists in the poor house fifty, sixty years ago while white people got rich off their music.

So people who aren't artists and who don't create anything get to set legal precedence on undoubtedly important copyright issues? As an artist who has created and who continues to create copyrighted materials, am I now expected to start suing fans who get my art tattooed on them in order to keep my copyright?

Maybe there's still something I'm missing even after reading this thread and all of Amina [copyrightedlast name]'s posts on the subject, but this whole thing just seems like an uncreative person getting unfairly butthurt because OH NO, now someone else has the same tattoo as her and OH NO, however will she be an individual now? Someone got a tattoo someone else designed Fuckin cry about it.