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Minor news items that don't deserve a thread


Richie Freebird

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TMZ is reporting that Randy Orton's tattoo artist is suing WWE as they are using the tattoos she put on Orton's arms and back [which she says are copyrighted] on their new video game without her permission.

A non-starter, surely, as she could say every time Orton appears on TV they are using her designs without her permission?

http://www.tmz.com/2018/04/17/randy-orton-tattoo-artists-sues-wwe-2k-games-tattoos/

 

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17 minutes ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

A non-starter, surely, as she could say every time Orton appears on TV they are using her designs without her permission?

Not necessarily, there are different licensing rules. They may well have permission for them appearing on TV but video games would require separate licensing agreements.

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Tattoos are a legal grey area anyway - precedent is that no US court has ever ruled in favour of the tattoo artist in this kind of case; there was a similar suit filed about one of the NBA games.

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The guy who did Mike Tyson’s face took legal action over the use of his design in the Hangover. They settled out of court but I assume he got paid. Since then you have copy cats wanting to cash in.

It’s fucking stupid as shit, at least the Hangover tattoo was plot sensitive and actually part of the film, not just on a person in the film. 

Tattoos are not exclusively the artist’s intellectual property, because we are selling that design to the client who then takes ownership. Once they leave the studio we can’t control their entire lives and expect to make profit from it.

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you would think that but its America and there is precedent already from 2012 of a tattoo artist suing a game manufacturer for featuring a tattoo they had done. 

that tattoo artist won and if she has a good lawyer then WWE will lose it based on this precedent. 

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The thing that I don’t get with it, and I’m not clued up on as to whether she has a case or not so I’m not going to go there, but she said she’s been tattooing Orton since 2003. Why has she now, 15 years later, decided to pursue this. If you’ve known someone that long and who he is, what does for a living and how his likeness is used, this can’t be some sort of new revelation to her. Or is it a case that something like this takes a long time to get to the courts and she’s actually been working on this for a while

Edited by WyattSheepMask
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22 minutes ago, David said:

I'm far from a legal expert, but I don't see her getting anything from this aside from some publicity maybe? Unless she's hoping WWE throw her a few coins to drop the whole thing?

The train of thought is usually, like with most design work, that the artist retains the rights to the design. It's happened a few times, The Tyson face piece and the Beckham back piece being two of the bigger examples and unless it's specifically written differently the artist has a good claim.

There is a huge difference between showing images of something and digitally copying it and creating new media with it. It'll get settled out of court but they'll probably just argue that she was aware of his fame when she did it and it was a reasonable expectation that her work would be used in such a way

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5 hours ago, Snitsky's back acne said:

Not with McDevitt on the case - whatever Vince pays him is not enough for the amount of stuff he's made go away over the years. 

Trump should be giving him a call.  Can you imagine what would come out if the FBI ever started digging into Vince?  Lordy.

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