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INKEDblog takes you beneath the skin of today's tattoo culture. Our mission is to celebrate tattooing as a modern art form which incorporates art, fashion, style, and pop culture. While paying homage and respect to the past, we look to present a contemporary take on the present and future of skin art.
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Monday Jun 27, 2005
Who Owns Celebrity Tats?
An article in today's Daily Mirror in the U.K. caught our eye, as the paper reported that Louis Molloy, the tattoo artist who's done nine of footballer David Beckham's now famous tats, is now threatening to sue Beckham if and when Beckham shows the tattoos in an ad campaign.
If Molloy does sue, claiming he owns the copyright of the images on Beckham's body, he'd be following the lead of Matthew Reed, the Oregon based tattoo artist who inked NBA star Rasheed Wallace's arm. Reed is also suing for copyright infringement claiming that he's due money now that Rasheed's tattoo is featured prominently in a Nike TV and Internet ad campaign.
Is there a trend here?
Molloy is quoted in the article in the Mirror as saying about Beckham - "They were under the impression that they owned those images but they don't. I was contacted recently and told they wanted to use some of them in a campaign. I said we'd have to draw up a licence agreement but then it got too complicated. So I said 'I own the copyright, they are my intellectual property, I drew them, I didn't copy them from other sources'. They still think they're the owners of the images but if they use them without my permission I'd sue. There's no doubt about it."
The article suggests that Molloy is firm in his assertion that he alone created Beckham's famous guardian angel on his back. He says - "David described a tattoo he'd seen of an upright figure, along the lines of a crucifix. I decided on the image of a diver at the Olympics standing on the high board with his arms outstretched. I couldn't find a relevant picture so I got an book on anatomy and basically pieced it all together. I added a pair of wings, showed the design to him and he loved it."
You can read the article online here.
| Comments
It is my opinion that this suing thing is going way to far. If a customer buys a tattoo from a tattoo artist then the piece belongs to the customer.
Posted by: Britchz at November 21, 2005 7:15 AM
If the ACTUAL Tattoo is the FOCUS of a commercial, then maybe the artist has a point. If these artists are suing just because the person is in an ad, and you can see the tattoos then they are wrong. While an artist generally owns their art work, tattoos are unique, because they are on your body, and a tattoo artist can never own your body, regardless if their artwork is on you. You are paying that tattoo artist to tattoo a design on you, so you own it.
Posted by: John at December 23, 2005 3:48 AM
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