From ArtNet:
If you copyright a work of art, does that prevent other people from turning that image into a tattoo? That’s the question set to be decided by a jury in California federal court, where the case of photographer Jeffrey B. Sedlik versus celebrity tattoo artist Kat Von D is due to go to trial.
“It is, as far as I know, the first case in which a tattoo artist has been sued for an allegedly copyrighted image on a tattoo on a client’s body,” Aaron Moss, an attorney at Greenberg Glusker Fields Claman & Machtinger LLP, who is not involved in the case, told Bloomberg.
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In March 2017, Von D, whose legal name is Katherine Von Drachenberg, published the first of two Instagram posts of a tattoo based on a Sedlik’s 1989 photograph of jazz legend Miles Davis, holding a finger to his lips.
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In 2021, Sedlik responded by suing Von D, claiming that the tattoo was an unauthorized derivative work, and that creating it and posting it on social media was an infringement of his copyright.
After reviewing legal filings from both sides, U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer has decided to bring the case to trial. A jury will be asked to decide whether or not the tattoo falls under the doctrine of fair use, as well as if Von D’s use of Sedlik’s image denied the photographer a licensing opportunity.
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“A finding of infringement would effectively make public display of the tattooed person’s arm an act of infringement,” Amelia Brankov, a copyright lawyer not involved in the case, told Artnet News. “This could give pause to tattoo artists who are asked to ink third-party imagery on their clients.”
“Holding tattoo artists civilly liable for copyright infringement will necessarily expose the clients of these artists to the same civil liability anytime they choose to get tattoos based on copyrighted source material, display their tattooed bodies in public, or share social media posts of their tattoos,” Von D’s lawyers wrote in a legal filing. “That is not the law and cannot be the law.”
Link to the rest at ArtNet
There are images of the original photo and the tattoo at the OP