Lets get weirder. Can a plastic surgeon own the rights to someone's nose? It's basically a sculpture.
It’s almost like intellectual property is an absurd injustice.
It's more that IP laws have not been kept up to date with advances in technology.
Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos – a Problem for Video Game Developers
41–50 of 90 posts
Re: Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos – a Problem for Video Game Developers
#42"Lawyers generally agree that an implied license allows people to freely display their tattoos in public, including on television broadcasts or magazine covers. " Seems to me that the digital representation of someone is just another way of displaying themselves. If it's legal to do it in photos and videos, it's legal to do it in 3D models. But even without that, I think it's unethical to claim ownership to any part…
You are suggesting that since it’s legal for me to share a fanphoto of myself and Mike Tyson, then by extension I should be allowed to use his likeness in a 3D model in a computer game. If rights did really get passed on that loosely, then celebrities would have no way of monetizing their own brand.
>You are suggesting that since it’s legal for me to share a fanphoto of myself and Mike Tyson, then by extension I should be allowed to use his likeness in a 3D model in a computer game.
No, that's not what they're suggesting at all, and you're conflating two separate things here. Using someone's likeness in a commercial work is already legally protected (in the most economically important jurisdictions anyway) and is different from mere publishing of a legal photo for which the copyright is owned (for which no permission is needed by default). The argument is that if you received Mike Tyson's agreement (or that of his authorized legal agent of course) to use his likeness in a game, then a 3rd party should not have veto over Mike Tyson's ability to allow use simply because they were paid to make a tattoo for him. It'd be his likeness, and he should be the sole decider of that absent compelling public interest otherwise (such as political commentary or criticism).
If somebody else does some work with our bodies, their interest in that should be exhausted instantly by the payment they receive for that service (or by nothing if they volunteered). It's our bodies we're talking about here, one of the most personal things about a human. At the very least this should be the default, though personally I'd lean towards this being something that is immutable as well and cannot be contractually signed away either. I don't think the can of worms it opens is worth any possible public gain from body royalties.
Re: Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos – a Problem for Video Game Developers
#43"He is just poaching on artists"
This is silly.
No game developer or otherwise is including an athlete's Tattoo as a selling or differentiation point for a game. Said another way, nobody is buying a game in order to see Lebron's Crown tattoo. If the artwork was original and not-player specific such that a user could purchase it as DLC or something similar to place on a custom character there would certainly be a case.
Seems like the legal construct of body artwork not being owned, but rather licensed to the person who it was tattooed on is the problem.
Re: Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos – a Problem for Video Game Developers
#44"He is just poaching on artists" This is silly. No game developer or otherwise is including an athlete's Tattoo as a selling or differentiation point for a game. Said another way, nobody is buying a game in order to see Lebron's Crown tattoo. If the artwork was original and not-player specific such that a user could purchase it as DLC or something similar to place on a custom character there would certainly be a case…
>No game developer or otherwise is including an athlete's Tattoo as a selling or differentiation point for a game. Said another way, nobody is buying a game in order to see Lebron's Crown tattoo.
There seems to be an appreciation of it by those who play the game. The linked video in the article showing Mike Evans tattoos seemed to be newsworthy.
Re: Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos – a Problem for Video Game Developers
#45If I hire someone to paint a portrait, and pay him it's mine isn't it? $5 or $5 million, that was the price agreed.
Why is the tattoo any different?
Re: Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos – a Problem for Video Game Developers
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
Definitely, if they agree that they maintain freedom of their likeness for photos and video, how does that not extend to any medium where the person is expressly licensing their likeness? You aren't reproducing Lionel Messi's tattoo, you are reproducing Lionel Messi . I'm also not surprised it largely isn't the artists themselves, it seemed weird that a tattoo artist would go after high profile clients after the fact…
A tattoo artist doing this seems to me to be a good way to damage that artist's reputation. Why get a tattoo from an artist who has demonstrated willingness to sue over representations of you??
He probably thinks that he can get (relatively) FU money by suing.
Re: Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos – a Problem for Video Game Developers
#47Disregarding the insanity of being able to wave your rights to a commissioned piece of artwork, that you paid for, that's attached to your body...I think we really need to rethink how video game content licencing works in the context of copyright law. This is just the current iteration of a debacle that has been ongoing since the first days of video games. Depictions of everyday things are suddenly the property of th…
Yea, I'm really frustrated with this situation as it relates to racing games. Apparently it's ok to shoot photos and movies with real cars in them, but you need to get a license to sell a game that models real cars? Nnngh. I think it's insane. And these games vanish from stores as licenses expire.
Re: Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos – a Problem for Video Game Developers
#48"What many people don’t realize, legal experts said, is that the copyright is inherently owned by the tattoo artist, not the person with the tattoos."
Now this will be my argument against having tattoos :)
Re: Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos – a Problem for Video Game Developers
#49Honestly if I'm playing a Basketball game the last thing I care about is the detail on tattoos, just parody them... This isn't such a crucial issue at the end of the day, I don't think you should be able to copyright a tattoo, the design may change as the person ages, or gets into a crazy accident, or whatever. Heck, when they die and decompose / get cremated it's all gone.
> “My tattoos are a part of my persona and identity,” Mr. James wrote in a declaration of support for Take-Two and 2K Games. “If I am not shown with my tattoos, it wouldn’t really be a depiction of me.” It comes down to how realistic you want the game to be. With games that pitch themselves as the pinnacle of being realistic with improvements made every year, not having the correct tattoos would break the realism. Es…
If he feels that way, he should do a business deal with the tattoo artists and own the copyright on his tattoos.
He has enough money for that.
Re: Athletes Don’t Own Their Tattoos – a Problem for Video Game Developers
#50The whole point of copyright protection was to prevent someone from freely duplicating a work and thereby depriving the original artist of profit, but in the case of a tattoo, I'd argue that every artistic tattoo is so slightly different from each other and labour-intensive to create that it should really be treated as "work for hire" and the human who owns the skin also owns the tattoo on it.