February 18, 2021
US photographer, Jeff Sedlik, has ambitiously sued movie star tattoo artist, Kat Von D, for copyright infringement, after she tattooed his image of jazz legend, Miles Davis, onto a shopper’s arm and posted it to social media.
Sedlik captured the Davis portrait in 1989 on the musician’s seashore home in Malibu, California, and the image was printed in Jazziz and Life Journal. A print is currently for sale at on-line artwork market, Saatchi Artwork, for US$13,750, with the next description by Sedlik:
‘I ready for this portrait session over a interval of years, working via a whole bunch of ideas, creating dozens of sketches. Miles chosen various my sketches, however this idea was his favourite. To make this {photograph}, I created a 20’x20′ tent of black material on the patio behind his residence. The picture was made at midday, in shiny solar, beneath a big sailcloth. Miles handled me with respect, and I photographed him on many events in his later years.’
In response to the lawsuit, Sedlik owns the copyright of the picture and affords ‘non-exclusive copyright licenses authorising restricted copy, distribution and show’ of the picture.
Tattoo artist, Kat Von D, turned well-known after showing within the noughties actuality TV present, LA Ink, and has 7.4 million Instagram followers. She operates the Excessive Voltage Tattoo parlour in West Hollywood, the place she inked the Davis portrait on a shopper’s arm in early 2017.
Sedlik’s legal professionals declare the tattoo artist didn’t request to license the picture prior and ‘unlawfully reproduced the Iconic Miles Davis Portrait by making a number of unauthorised reproductions and by-product works, in the end mounted within the type of a tattoo on the arm of a person’. The courtroom papers cite Von D ‘unlawfully’ printing the picture, inserting that print on a lightweight desk and tracing ‘each element’ in pencil, tattooing a duplicate of the Davis portrait on a purchasers arm, and publishing promotional movies and social media photographs on-line exhibiting the tattoo.
He believes publishing photographs on-line of the tattoo and artistic course of constitutes business use, because the content material promotes Von D’s model.
It appears seemingly Von D’s legal professionals will try to have the declare thrown out by arguing the alleged copyright infringement is Honest Use. This US exception to copyright infringement, which doesn’t exist in Australian copyright law, requires a defendant to fulfill a set of things, together with whether or not the defendant’s work is transformative from the unique.
It’ll come right down to a judges’ choice and the efficiency of each events’ authorized groups, however there’s loads of authorized precedent leaning in favour of the tattoo artist.
Of specific word are the courtroom instances won by famous art appropriator Richard Prince, whose shtick is to steal pictures, make slight changes, and promote them for obscene figures. The method has made him each venerable and loathed within the arts world – is determined by who you ask.
However Sedlik’s lawsuit highlights a number of instances the the lengths Von D went to make the tattoo seem as shut as potential to the unique picture. That is presumably a pre-emptive strike towards the work being ‘transfomrative’ and subsequently Honest Use. Sedlik’s drawback is tattooing and pictures are fairly totally different mediums.
Business lawyer, Jeremy Goldman, published a brief article in authorized document writer, Lexology, asking various questions in regards to the case.
‘It’s an aggressive transfer by one artist towards one other and raises many fascinating questions,’ he wrote. ‘Is it truthful use? What are Sedlik’s damages? Is there an current licensing market? Is the declare barred by the statute of limitations? Will the client, who presumably requested (and is now carrying) the design, get pulled into the lawsuit by both occasion? Will the Miles Davis property pile on with a proper of publicity declare?’
Sedlik takes copyright infringement extraordinarily critically. He’s deactivated his on-line web site portfolio as a consequence of ‘rampant copyright infringement’, and solely provides it on the request of a shopper. Learn the courtroom papers here.
