Take-Two Says Tattoo Artist Can't Get Statutory Damages Because He Only Registered Copyright In 2015
from the hmmm dept
Back when I first wrote about the copyright lawsuit between a tattoo artist and Take-Two Software, makers of the highly successful NBA2K basketball series, over the faithful depiction of LeBron James' image including his ink, I had been hopeful that perhaps this case could be a step towards resolving whether fair use applies when presenting images of people with tattoos in creative works. And that might still happen, but the defense Take-Two has decided to start things off with won't do the trick. Rather than asserting the work's status as fair use, the video game maker has led with a challenge to whether the tattoo artist can claim statutory damages based on when he had registered the copyright for the tattoos in question. It's a play on a technicality, one which seems to strangely play on what counts as an independent work.
Solid Oak Sketches had sued for damages nearing $1.2 million, claiming eight works had been infringed upon in the game NBA 2K16, including tattoo designs for LeBron James and two other players. According to Take-Two's most recent filing with the court, Solid Oak Sketches registered the copyright for those tattoos in 2015. The game company's argument is that it has been depicting those players and their tattoos since 2013, therefore there is precedent that statutory damages are not in play.
These claims for damages, however, are precluded by 17 U.S.C. §412. As is clear form the face of the Amended Complaint and its attachments, Take-Two has depicted Mr. James, Mr. Martin, and Mr. Bledsoe -- and their tattoos -- in its NBA videogames since at least 2013. This is years prior to the registration of the tattoos with the U.S. Copyright Office in June and July 2015... Here, where the same work has allegedly been infringed by the same defendant in the same manner since 2013 -- long before registration -- binding Second Circuit precedent dictates that statutory damages and attorneys' fees are unavailable.
In other words, because the complaint is over infringement that is essentially the same as has been occurring two years prior to the registration, precedent indicates that statutory damages and attorneys' fees should not apply. It's an interesting argument, though I wonder if it isn't without its pitfalls. Does Take-Two mean to suggest that in some way each years' NBA 2K game is not a separate work and publication. I am sure that is not what they are trying to argue, but arguing that the depiction of individual players within the game are essentially the same depiction for the purposes of combating this action leads us down that path.
Regardless, it does certainly seem to demonstrate that whatever harm Solid Oak Sketches wants to claim in their suit seems silly. Were it so injurious, it brings the question as to why it didn't act to protect itself in all the years previous in which similar alleged infringement is supposed to have occurred. Did it suddenly only become a problem in 2016?
The filing also makes it clear that Take-Two plans to also attack the underlying nature of the infringement claim in the future, which likely means it will assert a fair use argument. I hope it does. That would be the more important precedent to set here.
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Filed Under: basketball, copyright, lebron james, registration, tattoos
Companies: solid oak sketches, take two software
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Stupid question, but...
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Re: Stupid question, but...
Or any combination of those: I design AND tattoo the artist and he keeps the copyright, or he designs, a third person tattoos and my lawyer gets the copyright, or I get blackout drunk and wake up with a tattoo. How designed it? Who tattooed it? WHO OWNS THE COPYRIGHT?!
This last paragraph was, of course, a joke. For the serious discussion, look above it.
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Re: Re: Stupid question, but...
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Re: Stupid question, but...
So long as the final image isn't a copy from the book, the tattooee claims copyright.
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Does the architects get paid for this, no. Should the architect get paid for this, no.
The architect get paid for their work at the time they create it. They do not own the physical building or the site it is built on. And for the most part that building is always viewable by the public.
The same can be said for these tattoo's. The studio gets paid in full, up front. They do not own the canvas. The location of the tattoo's is such that they are viewable by the public.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
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Re:
> 16. Considers that the commercial use of photographs, video footage or other images of works which are permanently located in physical public places should always be subject to prior authorisation from the authors or any proxy acting for them.
Examples are given where royalty collection agencies have already pursued "unauthorized" photographs of outdoor structures and had pictures taken down from Wikipedia.
It's not just architecture. If you consider your chair design to be a work of art, and one of the countless chairs you sold over the years shows up in a stock photo database, you can sue the stock photo company and win.
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Preposterous
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G and O
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This is something that needs to be addressed higher up.
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Playing plaintiff's advocate for a moment...
Of course, if they only recently became aware of the harm, one could reasonably ask how much harm they really suffered. If they were seriously harmed by the alleged infringement, then they should have noticed something was wrong years ago, even if they only recently figured out that the root cause was this particular alleged infringement.
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This could be the end of the tattoo industry
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https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110408/03173713822/who-owns-copyright-tattoo.shtml
I'm of the opinion that unless an agreement is reached between the artist and the customer and put down on paper, the owner of the copyright is the person who designed the tattoo, with the caveat that the customer gets an implied license to depict the tattoo and be depicted with the tattoo since doing otherwise would be a counterfactual representation. Or maybe tattoos by themselves shouldn't be subject to copyright.
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I will admit...
Further further, even if I'm wrong (which I obviously am) how can a long-shot suit worth a million bucks be worth it for these people? Let's say they settle with Take Two for some reasonable fraction of that - they're still trading off any possibility of future business.
Then again, a search for "solid oak sketches" turns up nothing but references to this (and another) suit... no website. Maybe they did the tattoos a long time ago, before James became famous or something...
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Statutory Damages and Attorneys' Fees
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Plastic Surgeons
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Skin Trade
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it's smart move...
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