[HN Gopher] Photographer Sues Kat Von D over Miles Davis Tattoo
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Photographer Sues Kat Von D over Miles Davis Tattoo
Author : throw0101a
Score : 59 points
Date : 2021-02-16 21:17 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (petapixel.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (petapixel.com)
| OzzyB wrote:
| Photographers 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 wrote:
| > 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".
| sorenjan wrote:
| He 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.
| nuclear_eclipse wrote:
| It's legal negotiation. You sue for the maximum allowable
| penalty/damages in hopes of settling for something in between
| the maximum and zero.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| I think part of the deal with asks like $150k for damages like
| this are a) lawyers will eat a lot of it and b) if the judge
| sides with the original artist, they might not award the full
| amount anyway. Ultimately they may just end up with the
| licensing fee they lost and some compensation for time lost
| having to chase that fee. It seems greedy but it might be more
| indicative of a dysfunctional legal system? I'm not sure, just
| adding a couple cents.
| adwi wrote:
| That figure is for damages, presumably the number would have
| been lower if her team hadn't ignored the copyright owner
| trying to reach out directly--and much lower if they'd asked
| for a license before the tattoo.
|
| > Plaintiff Jeffrey Sedlik reached out to Kat Von D 'artist to
| artist' (through her representatives) seeking an amicable
| resolution of the matter prior to filing suit, but Ms. Von
| Drachenberg chose to ignore Mr. Sedlik's good faith effort to
| avoid litigation.
|
| [from linked Billboard article]
| [deleted]
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| I'm not sure what to make of a lawyer representing himself on a
| work from over 30 years ago. Comes across as greedy.
| bavila wrote:
| Just a technical note: The artist is not representing himself.
| The artist is Jeffrey Sedlik. The attorney is Gary Sedlik.
| They're obviously related, but not the same person.
| xlii wrote:
| Legal matters aside this is quite interesting from moral point of
| view. Sure, 30 years is long and 150k USD is a lot, but where one
| draws the line?
|
| I imagine that photographer would like to earn money for the
| photo he took. Probably such photographer only has couple of
| those shot throughout lifetime and it's quite obvious he's trying
| to make a living out of it. One could criticize greediness and
| time, but should it be 1$ 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.
| jetrink wrote:
| "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 (c)
| symbol tattooed on my body.
| mzs wrote:
| >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.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| 17 U.S. Code SS 107 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Fair use
|
| 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
| nacs wrote:
| There are exceptions for journalism / reporting news.
| aaron695 wrote:
| I 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-ta...
| [deleted]
| dvt wrote:
| Not 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
| vmception wrote:
| derivative works are exempt from copyright claims, case closed
| right?
| michaelt wrote:
| _> I think precedent hints that when media are crossed [...]
| the work is (usually) transformative enough._
|
| Perhaps sometimes - but written song lyrics don't lose their
| copyright when sung.
| breck wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| You 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 wrote:
| That 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.
| chordalkeyboard wrote:
| I think the gp's interpretations are a bit fanciful, but
| its fairly clear that amendments can indeed nullify parts
| of the constitution and your opinion that a given
| interpretation is "activist" isn't enough to dismiss that
| opinion.
| [deleted]
| fossuser wrote:
| Copyright serves a useful purpose, even if it's being abused
| here and the modern interpretation is a distortion of its
| original intent.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26028392
|
| As a concept it exists to promote the progress of science and
| useful arts - to incentivize people to create. This is
| something we want in a society.
| breck wrote:
| > As a concept it exists to promote the progress of science
| and useful arts - to incentivize people to create.
|
| You could also say "As a concept slaves exists to promote
| the cotton industry. This is something we want in a
| society."
|
| It doesn't matter if you lie and call him the "Red Angel",
| if when you stop and examine him closely he's really the
| devil.
| fossuser wrote:
| Obviously you have no interest in good faith discussion
| so I'll leave it here.
| breck wrote:
| It is not arguing in bad faith to say that no, the sun
| does not revolve around the earth and just because people
| repeat that a lot does not make it true.
|
| If you can name one single useful copyrighted work that
| is not composed of >90% "infringement" I'll apologize and
| shut up.
|
| Creators are not the creators they think they are.
| Everyone stands on the shoulders of giants, more so than
| they admit, even people who repeat that phrase.
|
| Creators should work for their income like the rest of
| us, and not depend on restricting the freedoms of others
| so that they can be more comfortable.
|
| The public domain is the only domain there should be. We
| abolished royalty in the USA but somehow we let the
| scourge of royalties remain. If you don't want people to
| share your ideas, fine, keep them to yourself. We don't
| need the help of any copyright leeches. We'll do just
| fine without those "contributions".
|
| -Breck, via the World Wide Web and TCP/IP
| leviathant wrote:
| The 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...
| jasonjayr wrote:
| There 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 wrote:
| IANAL, 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/
| sorenjan wrote:
| There are multiple tattoos of Disney and Nintendo characters
| engaging in various sexual activities, which both companies
| normally seem allergic to.
| ta1234567890 wrote:
| Very 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).
| sneak wrote:
| Copyright does not work that way, unfortunately.
| BoysenberryPi wrote:
| IANAL 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.
| [deleted]
| sneak wrote:
| I think it depends on whether or not those tattoo artists are
| using the work to promote themselves (and if they are famous
| enough that that tattoo-brand promotion is worth real money).
| It doesn't make sense to sue someone to recover the price of
| the tattoo. It absolutely makes sense to sue someone if you can
| potentially recover the price of the tattoo plus the marketing
| value to the tattooing business/brand.
| TeamTurtle wrote:
| It depends on the visibility of the tattoo artist or
| production. Friend went on a TV production for tattoos and the
| artists had a strict policy they would not use any copyrighted
| image.
| WORLD_ENDS_SOON wrote:
| Not sure about tattoo artists, but Disney has been known to
| pursue cake decorators / bakeries that uses their IP without a
| license.
| nacs wrote:
| Ridiculous. 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 wrote:
| While 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.
| RHSeeger wrote:
| It 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-artis...
| foateaca wrote:
| The purpose of copyright is to promote science and arts, not to
| make money.
| t-writescode wrote:
| The 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.
| vinger wrote:
| Money is the author's goal. More work from author is
| society's goal.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The purpose of copyright is to promote science and arts _by
| allowing the creators to make money_.
|
| (In theory. The practice, as with most things, gets
| complicated.)
| beervirus wrote:
| > To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by
| securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the
| exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
|
| It is pretty clearly about promoting those things _via economic
| incentives_ , by giving inventors and authors a limited
| monopoly.
| joe463369 wrote:
| Jeff Sedlick appears to have created a photograph that is
| iconic over 30 years later, while the tattoo artist is just
| copying it. If the point of copyright law is to encourage
| creativity then don't we want Sedlick to win?
| kzrdude wrote:
| Copyright is a compromise between the creatives and the
| community. Sedlick has already received more than enough
| compensation and protection to enable this creation, and that
| was the point of copyright - to encourage the creation of new
| works, not to protect them in eternity.
|
| The compromise has diminishing returns for providing
| protections and affordances on longer time scales, and 30
| years is really pushing it.
| joe463369 wrote:
| Do we know this? He's not even got a Wikipedia page. My
| understanding is that photographers earn peanuts and I for
| one would be raging if some Instragammer was coining it in
| from copying the one piece of work that made me famous.
| globular-toast wrote:
| No, because then Jeff Sedlick will retire and stop taking
| photographs which is not encouraging creativity.
| otterley wrote:
| There are few incentives for producing scientific and artistic
| advancement that are as powerful as monetary gain.
| yesenadam wrote:
| Where did you learn that? I thought "I bet you're not an
| artist" and looked..hmm it says lawyer. I can't speak about
| the scientific half of that, but..really, you think "artistic
| advancement" comes from money? That sounds totally wrong,
| though not sure how you would find evidence for or against
| it. Actually, it's unclear what you mean exactly - What are
| these incentives as powerful as money for producing artistic
| advancement, that you didn't mention?
| m1sta_ wrote:
| Promotion via control. The person afforded that control can use
| it to fund their art or encourage future artists.
| ahoy wrote:
| in spirit perhaps, in practice not so much
| schwartzworld wrote:
| Any 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_ wrote:
| Copyright law is pretty clear on this one. She's not in a great
| spot.
| vinger wrote:
| I thought we all could agree nothing is clear cut here.
| Courts will be involved and laws defined in a long expensive
| process.
| sigzero wrote:
| No it's not. The article even says that as well.
| t-writescode wrote:
| From your comment, I have no idea where you think copyright
| law is on this issue.
| hammock wrote:
| >"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?
| 100ideas wrote:
| Reminds me of the "Kind of Bloop" fiasco 10 years ago:
| 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 wrote:
| That is incredibly fucked.
| gedy wrote:
| I 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 wrote:
| The 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 wrote:
| The photographer seems to focus an awful lot on legal matters:
|
| 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
| Trias11 wrote:
| Photog 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.
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(page generated 2021-02-16 23:01 UTC)