Photographer and Kat Von D Go on Trial in Case That May Upend Tattoo Industry

But I don't see anything overly original in this. It'd be like people selling their colored pencil facsimiles of the Mona Lisa. There's talent in the technique, but there's next to no creativity in the artistic expression.

Also, as an aside, the photographer isn't exactly hurting for money either, so I don't think it's simple greed.

I'm on the side of the tattoo artist on this one, but it does seem like a tattoo printer would not be far into the future with our current tech. I'm honestly more surprised this hasn't caught on more.

Just look at that line in the Verge article. It's bad. Now imagine what its shading would look like.

I don't doubt we'll get there eventually, but that's not particularly close.

It is remarkably round though, it killed that part.

> Whether something is copyright infringement is not predicated on the scale that it happens at last time I checked (if you make x copies per day you're fine, but if you hit y (>x) you better watch your legal back).

I'm not arguing that scale makes it legal to do, just that scale can make it impractical to execute.

I view this as a feature of copyright. It's goal is to promote the arts and sciences, and I don't think violations of copyright too small to be worth filing lawsuits for are harming the arts or sciences.

Even winning this lawsuit seems like a Pyrrhic victory. What do they gain? The judgement can't be that high, what kind of damages can the photographer show? The photographer certainly has standing to sue, I just don't understand the end goal here.

I would be touched and honored beyond belief that anyone cares about my work enough to have it permanently inscribed on their skin to carry it with them through life and into death. And to have a talented artist doing the inscription would be beyond belief.

I'm not saying the photographer ought to feel that way, that's just my reaction as Joe Schmoe.

There's no harm to the marketability of my art. Frankly, the person getting tattooed probably cares more about it being Miles Davis than it being an exact replica of that photo. If I made a stink, they'd just change the tattoo design enough to be fair use. Make it Miles Davis doing "hear no evil" instead of "speak no evil" or something.

I just don't see this tattoo taking anything away from the photographer, so I don't see a need for Kat Von D to pay.

Moreover, it's fine for Kat Von D, who can afford a legal team and probably charges enough to have them verify that a tattoo doesn't infringe. Your average $75/hr or $100/hr artist doesn't have those options, and will be open to being bombarded with copyright claims of varying quality, including trolls.

> So is transferring a picture to a r-shirt, yet there we recognize the rights of the artist.

This is notably different because it is often a literal digital copy. I have had T shirts made, you can just send them a digital image. I didn't have to transcribe it or put in any effort.

> It’s funny that if someone was copying her original tattooes the she would obviously be arguing that it was infringement.

I don't think this is particularly relevant. Kat Von D can be both a hypocrite and not guilty of copyright infringement. I also think there's a difference between transcribing art between formats and imitating a piece of art in the same format.

Paraphrasing a book is very different than converting it to a play.

Often they would not share the negatives or full resolution images. That way if you decide you want enlargements, more prints, whatever, you have no choice but to buy them from the original photographer.

BTW, in the above scenario it's highly advisable to get whatever pictures you want soon after the event. No telling how good your photographer's backup practices are, or whether the basement where they keep all the negatives will get flooded..